Transcript - Small Practices for Brighter Days With Paula Felps and Michelle Jones

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Small Practices for Brighter Days With Paula Felps and Michelle Jones

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:04] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 560 of Live Happy Now. As we enter March and observe happiness month, we’re going to kick things off by talking about gloom and doom. I’m your host, Paula Felps, and today I’m joined by Live Happy Social Media Manager, Michelle Jones, who’s here to talk with me about the results of a new Gallup poll that shows Americans are not in a good mood. We’re going to talk about those results and the practices you can use to turn it around. Then, we’ll talk about what we have planned for Happiness Month and the International Day of Happiness on March 20th, so you can be a part of it. Let’s have a listen.

[EPISODE]

[0:00:41] PF: Michelle, welcome back to Live Happy, and thank you for joining me on the show.

[0:00:46] MJ: Hey, Paula. Good to be back.

[0:00:49] PF: Well, it’s a big month for us. It’s a special time of the year. It is March, and tell us why that is so important.

[0:00:55] MJ: March is Live Happy‘s Super Bowl. It is Happiness Month. International Day of Happiness is March 20th. We are ready to roll.

[0:01:04] PF: We need to clarify, we are not giving away Super Bowl rings for this.

[0:01:08] MJ: Not this time. Maybe next year.

[0:01:11] PF: That’s going to be our merch grab for next year.

[0:01:13] MJ: Perfect.

[0:01:14] PF: We get advertising and Super Bowl rings.

[0:01:17] MJ: Done.

[0:01:18] PF: All right, we have our plan for next year. But for 2026, it’s not going to be like that. You and I wanted to get together and talk about this, because it is such an interesting time in history to be celebrating happiness. In reality, right now, America is really going through a dark and difficult time, and you and I had received this recent poll from Gallup, and we talked about that, and it’s showing that we as a country are really not in a very good mood. Anyone who’s listening to this, if you’ve been feeling heavier lately, you’re not imagining it. It’s not just you. It is a real thing for this country right now. Michelle, do you want to talk a little bit about some of the findings from this poll? I’m not going to call them highlights, because they’re really not nice.

[0:02:02] MJ: They’re not. Yeah. In 2025, 59% of Americans gave a high rating when they were asked to evaluate how good their life will be in five years. You may think, that’s not bad, that’s still more than half the population, but it is the lowest level since Gallup began asking this question, and that was about 20 years ago.

[0:02:24] PF: What this is saying is what? Only 59% of people think their lives are going to be good five years from now? Is that –

[0:02:32] MJ: Yeah. It’s talking about how Americans feel about their future, and it’s down more than we even feel about life right now, so they’re saying, they’re not that hopeful about what’s going to go on in the future, regardless of what’s going on now. I don’t think it’s going to get any better, which is really concerning.

[0:02:51] PF: Have we ever had a time like this in history before? Because I see a lot of measurements that are saying like, we felt like this here, or we felt like this here.

[0:02:59] MJ: Yeah. This is actually the lowest that people have thought about their future in the 20 years that Gallup’s been asking the question. But current life optimism was lower only in 2020, which was right in the middle of COVID. People were thinking, “Right now, I’m not feeling so good,” rightfully so. That’s really the only other time it’s been lower.

[0:03:20] PF: Man. How is that divided? Let’s talk about, is this – are there any certain segments that feel worse than others, that are happier, or more optimistic than others?

[0:03:30] MJ: Funny enough, it’s not a political thing. It’s not a Democrat, or a Republican response. Both parties reported feeling less optimistic about where we’re headed.

[0:03:39] PF: Yeah. As we talked about this, and we really dug into these findings, we decided it was something we did want to talk about. It seems counter to Live Happy, the brand, but our whole mission is about helping people stay hopeful and empowered, even when news and events are feeling dark and heavy. We really want to be able to focus on the practices to help everyone through it. We’ve had so many recent episodes about that. It’s hope, developing adaptability, creating connections, things like that. You see small incremental changes that we make. Not like this big, everything’s fine. Because we don’t ever want to talk toxic positivity. We’re not ignoring what’s going on around us. We just want to dig into how we can balance what’s going on and find practices that will lift us up.

[0:04:29] MJ: Yeah. Paula, this is a topic I find so important. I know it’s something that we both talk about when we create content for Live Happy, whether that’s something we’re posting on Facebook and Instagram, or through the podcast. All of you listening right now, our audience, you have made it very clear through your comments and feedback that you appreciate that we don’t just ignore what’s happening in the world. We’re not here to tell you everything’s fine. Good vibes only. That is not us. We know things are not always going to go well for us all the time. When things do get tough, we have to turn to those real-world practical ways to keep us from crashing out. Whether that’s giving ways to reframing our thinking, or providing tools that we can use right now today.

[0:05:11] PF: One of the big simple steps is avoiding the news. This is a really funny thing for you and I to talk about, because we both come from news backgrounds. You come from the broadcast side, I come from the print side. It really runs counter to our entire careers to be like, don’t absorb so much news. One thing about the news that I wanted to talk about, because I always found this amusing, we are familiar with the concept of the news giving us a whole bunch of bad news, like in broadcast, 28 minutes of bad news and two minutes of a happy story. There really is a philosophy behind that. We can adopt that in our personal lives. Can you talk about why news inundates us with the bad and then follows up with the good?

[0:06:00] MJ: Yeah. I think people understand and they get that news burnout is very real, especially today. It takes a lot out of you emotionally. It’s sad sometimes. It makes you angry sometimes. It drains your emotions. The kicker, as it’s called in broadcast, helps people manage those emotions. It helps prevent the show from abruptly ending and then you’re just left with all this emotional baggage and you have nowhere to release it. That positive story at the end helps you process what you’ve just watched and then get some relief from it.

[0:06:33] PF: Being able to bring in that whole philosophy into our personal lives, being able to end your day with something positive, no matter how bad it’s been, we recently had Anne Grady on the show and she talked about when her son was institutionalized, he had severe mental illness, autism, a lot of problems going on, and she would leave the institution that she had just put him in and go back to her hotel and watch comedy. Not because she felt like, “Hey, I’m in the mood for comedy,” but she needed that to offset the heaviness of her life around it. It really is balancing it with humor, or with noticing something that’s good in the world and finding something that can lift us up, whatever that – whether it’s a cat video, or a comedian.

[0:07:20] MJ: Yeah. I think that our negativity bias plays a big role here. It is so easy to harp on all the negative stuff. That is by design. It is in our brains. We are wired to notice threats more than progress. It is a survival instinct that has evolved as we as a species has evolved. We remember negative events more vividly than positive ones. It’s why we remember one little criticism over being praised multiple, multiple times. This instinct was originally meant to protect us. Now, today, it’s not a survival instinct like it was in history, but it leads to a lot of stress and anxiety for people now.

[0:08:01] PF: Yeah. Our nervous systems were not designed for this kind of overwhelm. That has been pointed out by so many experts over and over. I feel like, everyone I’ve talked to on the show so far this year has pointed out, we are not designed to take in this much negativity, this much information. Just the sheer volume of information, even if it was positive, would be too much for us to process. You have a great way that you’re coping with it right now, and talk to us about this, because it’s a good strategy.

[0:08:33] MJ: Yeah. I mean, it’s so true. We have access to everything all the time. We know every little tiny thing that’s going on worldwide. I think this is why a lot of people really enjoyed watching the Winter Olympics. It’s something we talked about recently on our social media channels. There is this shared sense of achievement and strangers coming together. They’re rooting for the same team and you feel really good, witnessing people achieve their lifelong dreams. I know for me, I got choked up watching it. But it does work the other way, too. If all you’re ever watching is something awful happening in the world, it is so easy to feel this sense of hopelessness. If we focus on that alone and we don’t actively look for the good, we can feel incredibly overwhelmed.

[0:09:23] PF: Another great thing that an event like the Olympics, this is true of any sporting event, music events, things like that, it brings us together and closes divides. A gentleman who was on the show a couple of times, Peter Montoya, he really talked about restoring civility. He had done a lot of research and had tracked the division in our society back to when comedians started becoming political. When you had just Johnny Carson, everybody watched Johnny Carson and they would talk about it at work the next day and it was something they could share a chuckle with. As comedians became more political, that divide started being felt in the office Up until then, you may not have known how somebody felt politically. It changed the way that we started seeing each other. Events like sporting events, music events, those kinds of things help us find that common ground and also give us a sense of relief from all the information that we’re consuming.

[BREAK]

[0:10:21] PF: We’ll be right back with more of Live Happy Now.

[0:10:30] PF: Now, let’s hear more.

[EPISODE CONTINUED]

[0:10:33] PF: There are practices that we can use to counterbalance that big picture gloom and all the effects of doom scrolling. There’s a lot of evidence-based practices, like gratitude and connection and purpose and kindness. Let’s talk about, what is your go-to?

[0:10:50] MJ: Reframing is a big one for me. I’ve been reading a lot lately about how millennials were taught to work really hard and you’ll get the job, you’ll get the salary you want, you can do all the fun things, travel the world. Then they work their way up the ranks 15, 20 years. They get there and then they’re like, “This is it? This is what I worked so hard for? I am not happy.” Something I’ve realized now that I did not realize in my 20s and much of my 30s was that is not where happiness lives. That is not where you find your worth. My tool is this. I ask myself, whatever’s happening politically, socially, economically, anything that gets me worked up, makes me feel that life is just so overwhelming right now, I ask, does that actually affect my day-to-day life? Does it impair my ability to live my life peacefully? If the answer is no, I just let it go. Completely out of my brain. I do not let myself give it any attention.

[0:11:49] PF: That’s a hard habit to develop. That’s something where you need the sticky notes on the mirrors to remind you, will it matter? Does it matter? Or, can I let this go? Because that’s not something that just comes naturally to us. We want to obsess on it. That also brings up the point of focusing on your immediate sphere of influence. Because you’re looking now at what you can change and what you have power over. If you can’t change the world, you can’t change all these problems that are going on, but you do have a choice about how you respond to it. That’s always what it comes down to. It’s like, how are we going to be able to respond to it? One practice that I would encourage anyone to use is to just ask yourself like, what is one thing that I can do today that brings me back to center? Because if you can have one go to, whether it’s 20 minutes of listening to music, or taking a walk, or whatever it is, I think then you’ve got at least something in your toolkit you’ve got to plan. Michelle, what actions do you like to take when things get a little out of hand?

[0:12:54] MJ: Yeah. This is when I’ve been going to over the last couple of months where the weather hasn’t been so great and I can’t get out in nature, or take a walk, or grab the dogs and walk around the neighborhood. I like to go to the local coffee shop out in the country. I sit with a latte and I just listen. 99% of the time, people are not complaining about the world. They’re talking about gratitude. They’re talking about the rain we just got to get out of this drought and how thankful they are for that. They’re excited about the impending spring weather. If I’m really feeling the conversation, I’ll engage. That is always what fills my cup.

[0:13:36] PF: That’s a really good way to do it, because we do forget that small talk, the value of small talk, of just checking out of the big picture and checking in with little minutia of the day. There is a value to that that disengages our overthinking brain and lets us breathe into that space.

[0:13:55] MJ: Absolutely. Paula, what do you do?

[0:13:57] PF: Well, this won’t surprise you. I have a couple of things I love to do. One of them, like I just mentioned, is music. There is a way that I intentionally listen to music. I’m a big music fan. I’ve done the Positive Note Podcast and there’s so much research about how good music is for you emotionally, spiritually, physically. But then, I read more research recently about how if you do it intentionally, you can actually boost those benefits. It’s not just turning on my Spotify playlist. It’s actually saying like, okay, I’m going to do this with the intention of lifting my spirits. You already set your intention for what you’re going to accomplish, and the music will help you do that. That’s one of the things I do with it.

The other is, we just talked about this too, is humor. Love, love, love, using comedy. Wrapping up the night with a few reels, Kathleen Madigan, a little Taylor Tomlinson. It’s good to go to bed with a smile on your face.

[0:14:56] MJ: What is your go-to song?

[0:14:58] PF: Oh, man. Well, it depends on the day.

[0:15:03] MJ: On your mood.

[0:15:05] PF: See right now, what’s running through my head is the Meatloaf song. I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that.

[0:15:12] MJ: A classic.

[0:15:12] PF: I can’t tell you why. I just have a song of the day, every day, that sticks in there and runs around. That’s just how I roll.

[0:15:22] MJ: It doesn’t matter why. If it makes you happy, go for it. If it’s Meatloaf, I support you.

[0:15:28] PF: Meatloaf was my go-to. Yeah, I think the point really is if anyone listening can decide on one small action, they’re going to take whenever things get overwhelming, at least we’re moving in the right direction. It’s not going to change everything. It’s not always going to help, but we are at least moving in the right direction.

[0:15:50] MJ: Definitely. Yeah, I think that that’s so important for everyone to really just think about the small things. We’re not talking about you have to change your entire life. Listening to a song, simple enough. Small, positive action. Boom, you’re good to go.

[0:16:06] PF: Speaking of actions, part of March has always been our happy acts. The last several years, we have celebrated International Day of Happiness, and we’ve always started at the beginning of March by providing daily happy acts. This year, we’re switching it up just a little bit. Michelle, you want to talk about how we are changing things around?

[0:16:28] MJ: For sure. Traditionally, Live Happy is the one to compile the list of happy acts, and then we share that out with all of you. But we are always so inspired by the comments and feedback that we get in return that this year, we want to hear directly from you. If you are not following us on Facebook, or Instagram, go ahead and search Live Happy, or @MyLiveHappy on Instagram. Give us a follow and then share one positive action that you’re taking this month. We cannot wait to share these with others. We just want to really create a community of happy acts, starting with all of you.

[0:17:03] PF: I’m excited about this, because we’re going to take some of those, turn them into graphics. We’re going to share them on our social media. We’re going to share them in our newsletter. We really want this to be like, hey, this is what we can do, what each of us can do to take a happy action. Because I’m sure that other people have a lot more ideas than we do. I’m really excited to see what they come up with.

[0:17:26] MJ: Yeah. We’re only a team of a couple of folks. We’ve got this network of tens of thousands. Be sure to hop on there, engage with your community of Live Happy enthusiasts. I’m super excited to see what everyone comes up with.

[0:17:41] PF: We want to pick your happy brains.

[0:17:43] MJ: Yes.

[0:17:45] PF: this is a great way to start Happiness Month. We’ll be back throughout the month filling in our listeners on what we’ve learned from the World Happiness Report. That’s always interesting. We’re going to find out how the US did this year as in the list of happiest countries and see if Finland once again –

[0:18:03] MJ: Comes out on top.

[0:18:04] PF: Then, we’ll be talking about some of the other things that they are discussing in the World Happiness Report that are leaning heavily into the effects of social media. That’s something we’re going to look at this month as well. Michelle, anything else you can tell us about this month and what you’re looking forward to?

[0:18:21] MJ: I would, Paula, but I am currently looking up flights to Finland. I’ll have to get back to you.

[0:18:28] PF: All right.

[0:18:28] MJ: But yes, I am excited to see what all the folks come up with on social media and getting that community together and getting a lot of great ideas of what we can be doing this month to create a little bit more happy in our lives.

[0:18:41] PF: I love it. All right. Well, Michelle, as always, thank you for coming on, talking with me and sharing your happiness with the world.

[0:18:50] MJ: Anytime. We’ll see you again soon.

[END OF EPISODE]

[0:18:57] PF: That was Live Happy Social Media Manager, Michelle Jones, talking with me about Happiness Month. If you’d like to learn more, just visit us at livehappy.com and click on this podcast episode, or follow us on social media.

That’s 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]

In this episode, you’ll learn:

Why Americans are reporting historically low levels of optimism.
How negativity bias and nonstop news consumption intensify feelings of gloom.
Why balancing heaviness with humor or uplifting content can help regulate emotions.

Follow Live Happy on Social Media:

Facebook: @livehappy
Instagram: @mylivehappy
Twitter: @livehappy

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