Speaker 1: Arthur Brooks talks about you know, happiness is love, and
Speaker 1: it's true. It's love, you know, and it's love. It's
Speaker 1: in personal love, it's romantic love, it's filial love, it's
Speaker 1: parent love, caregiver love, love for the planet, animals, whatever
Speaker 1: it is. But it's this amazing feeling and significance and
Speaker 1: largely you feel that with people.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Psychology Podcast. Today is great to have
Speaker 2: Karen Guggenheim on the show. Karen is a pioneer in
Speaker 2: the global happiness movement, having created the World Happiness Summit.
Speaker 2: She's also an author and speaker who inspires people about
Speaker 2: how to grow post trauma and rebuild a life focused
Speaker 2: on meaning, purpose, and happiness. In this episode, we discuss
Speaker 2: her new book, Cultivating Happiness, Overcome Trauma and Positively Transform
Speaker 2: your life. Is it possible to overcome pain by learning
Speaker 2: to be happy? This This is the question Karen Guggenheim
Speaker 2: asked herself after the sudden death of her husband in
Speaker 2: twenty thirteen. In this episode, we talk about her own
Speaker 2: personal journey and also how happiness can be learned through
Speaker 2: small daily changes that we can all bring more compassion
Speaker 2: positively into our days to feel better about ourselves and
Speaker 2: others and to deal with adversity. So that further ado,
Speaker 2: I'll bring you Karen Guggenheim. Karen Guggenheim, it is so
Speaker 2: amazing to have you on the Psychology Podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I wanted to do on the show for a
Speaker 2: long time.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Yeah, I've definitely wanted to be here, and
Speaker 1: I flew all the way to New York to be
Speaker 1: here with you.
Speaker 2: Incredible, so honored. So tell me, like, who is Karen Guggenheim?
Speaker 2: You know, how would you describe yourself?
Speaker 1: Well, I was waiting for you to tell me that.
Speaker 2: You want others to define your identity.
Speaker 1: No, no, absolutely not, But I feel like it's I have,
Speaker 1: of course my identity, but in the last eleven years
Speaker 1: it's really changed, some of it through my willful action
Speaker 1: and then some just because of the events that happened
Speaker 1: in my life. So my identity has shifted a little
Speaker 1: bit from you know, wife and to widow for example.
Speaker 1: So that was a shifting identity. But at the core,
Speaker 1: I think who I am is definitely I'm a mom,
Speaker 1: I'm a friend, I'm a daughter, I'm a sister, I
Speaker 1: think I if I can say I'm a visionary, I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm a catalyst as well. So I've taken
Speaker 1: pain and tried to do something that is helpful and
Speaker 1: beneficial and good, and that's who I am.
Speaker 2: Amazing. At what point in the story of your life
Speaker 2: did you get interested in happiness?
Speaker 1: After my life broke?
Speaker 2: When was that?
Speaker 1: So? About? So eleven years ago my husband died suddenly
Speaker 1: from the flu, and yeah, and I was married to
Speaker 1: him half my life, literally, and so so much of
Speaker 1: me was tied to this relationship and to this person
Speaker 1: because we had a really good, strong marriage and friendship.
Speaker 1: We were very very good friends, and he really got
Speaker 1: me and I got him, and so it was.
Speaker 2: A very.
Speaker 1: It was a very welcoming relationship and a relationship of
Speaker 1: belonging and you know, romance whatever. But the most important
Speaker 1: part it was that I could be totally myself with
Speaker 1: this person and not feel judged and just feel home.
Speaker 1: And when that ended, my first inclination was to shut
Speaker 1: off to the world, make the room really cold, get
Speaker 1: into my bed, put down the blinders, and just lay there.
Speaker 1: Right And then I remember it had children, and so
Speaker 1: I knew that I had to show up for them.
Speaker 1: And so I decided to live, and that meant that
Speaker 1: I was going to become an active participant in my life.
Speaker 1: And to me, that meant that my purpose was going
Speaker 1: to be happiness, and I was going to get to happiness.
Speaker 1: And I didn't know how. I didn't know definitely about
Speaker 1: the scientific definition of happiness or well being. I just
Speaker 1: intuitively knew that for me, survival meant that I had
Speaker 1: to like overshoot it. It had to be so great
Speaker 1: and so wonderful that I'd want to live in that life.
Speaker 1: And the first step I knew to go into that
Speaker 1: life was to feel the pain. Because when you are
Speaker 1: in shock or in laws, the shock first, so the
Speaker 1: pain is not immediate, and there's kind of like that
Speaker 1: decision of am I going to avoid it? Am I
Speaker 1: gonna use any kind of tricks and to get away
Speaker 1: from it? But since I knew that I wanted to
Speaker 1: go to happiness, of course I've realized then it's inside.
Speaker 1: You don't go out, you go in. But the first
Speaker 1: step was to feel that pain, and so I embraced
Speaker 1: the pain. I didn't wallow in it, but I embraced it.
Speaker 1: And four months after he died. I was getting an
Speaker 1: NBA Georgetown University because I knew that I had to retrain,
Speaker 1: you know, my career and so and I wanted to
Speaker 1: be with people. It was very important for me to
Speaker 1: be with I didn't want to be with people, but
Speaker 1: I knew that where for where I was going, I
Speaker 1: needed to see people. So I began to travel every
Speaker 1: other weekend and to Washington, and so accidentally I became
Speaker 1: happy again.
Speaker 2: Wow. What were you What was your job before eleven
Speaker 2: years ago?
Speaker 1: So international crisis management communicator. I was a former journalist,
Speaker 1: so I've always been one of the ims who am
Speaker 1: my identity. I'm a storyteller. So I've been a storyteller
Speaker 1: all my life, and so in a way, my work
Speaker 1: now is a different kind of storytelling. I'm storytelling happiness.
Speaker 2: Where were you born?
Speaker 1: I was born?
Speaker 2: Said that? Okay, yes, wow, and you were When did
Speaker 2: you come to America? Well?
Speaker 1: The first I always came, you know, back and forth,
Speaker 1: because my mom was actually born in La My father's German,
Speaker 1: so we're an international family. Yeah. But to live really
Speaker 1: was when I think it was it was seventh grade maybe, yeah.
Speaker 2: Wow, So you you've had quite an interesting life.
Speaker 1: So far, it's been interesting.
Speaker 2: Y's been a journey and you've kind of and where
Speaker 2: you're at now is on happiness. Why do you think
Speaker 2: happiness is so important? Can compare it to other things
Speaker 2: you could have focused on, like achievement or even self actualization?
Speaker 2: You know why happiness?
Speaker 1: Because happiness is something that you feel in your gut, right,
Speaker 1: And so I believe that when you narrow it down,
Speaker 1: we do things because we want to be happier, because
Speaker 1: we want others to be happy that we care about, right,
Speaker 1: And so self actualization and self awareness and all these
Speaker 1: other things I think our components for us to become happier, right,
Speaker 1: And so I just believe that happiness is incredibly important
Speaker 1: when we define it in the correct way, right, that
Speaker 1: it's not just pleasure to find it for me. So,
Speaker 1: you know, it's funny because my definition largely came from
Speaker 1: a conversation with a Robert business dinner. He's wonderful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's one of my mentors.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's great. It's just so wonderful. And you know
Speaker 1: he said, you know, happiness has a cognitive component and
Speaker 1: an emotional component, and it's universal that it feels good.
Speaker 1: The other thing that I got from rich Lard is
Speaker 1: that the happiness shouldn't hurt other people, right, You're for
Speaker 1: sort of your happiness shouldn't be here, yes, which is important, right,
Speaker 1: or even yourself exactly, not to hurt others or yourself.
Speaker 1: And and then what I love the most is a
Speaker 1: cognitive component, right, And that's where I guess achievement and
Speaker 1: purpose and meaning, significance, mindfulness, and then the ways of being,
Speaker 1: of being kind and compassionate and being altruistic, and all
Speaker 1: of these things are the ones, the components of happiness
Speaker 1: and relationships in particular, that you can do something about.
Speaker 1: And that way you can construct your happiness in a
Speaker 1: way because as you do that, then you're hedging for
Speaker 1: more moments of positive emotion. So it's not that it's
Speaker 1: linear positive emotion, but emotion, but it's the trend towards.
Speaker 1: So for me, happiness is that that line, that trend
Speaker 1: that is towards more positive emotion. Understanding that you know
Speaker 1: the totality of human experience is going to bring you
Speaker 1: to those low moments. But perhaps when you learn these frameworks,
Speaker 1: you don't go as slow as you would have or
Speaker 1: stay there as long as you would have if you
Speaker 1: wouldn't be practicing these habits.
Speaker 2: I want to just say the name of your book
Speaker 2: and I'll show it for those looking as well. Cultivating
Speaker 2: happiness over colon, overcome trauma, and positively transform your life.
Speaker 2: I think maybe some people not expect that subtitle right
Speaker 2: after that title, and so it's it's surprising and it's interesting.
Speaker 2: I want to double click on the word trauma for
Speaker 2: a second. I feel like the word trauma's overused these days.
Speaker 2: Everything is now trauma, you know, like back pain, It's like, okay,
Speaker 2: that's trauma.
Speaker 1: Or if someone says, get what you wanted trauma.
Speaker 2: If someone doesn't, or you don't agree, even you don't
Speaker 2: agree with someone you know politically or whatever, it's like,
Speaker 2: don't traumatize me by telling me your you know, beliefs
Speaker 2: that are different than mine. How do you define trauma?
Speaker 2: I asked you to define happiness. These are very weighty questions.
Speaker 2: Now can you define trauma?
Speaker 1: You know? I don't think I can. I can define
Speaker 1: my experience with it, and I have come to realize
Speaker 1: that good answer that you can't define laws. You can't
Speaker 1: define trauma in a way because what is traumatic to
Speaker 1: you may not be to me. Right and so what
Speaker 1: I can say with my experience and trauma is to
Speaker 1: have an experience which shakes the foundation maybe of your life,
Speaker 1: of your identity, of your future. I feel that, you know,
Speaker 1: when I would in that room and my husband was dying,
Speaker 1: because I was there when when he was dying and
Speaker 1: it was like cold, it's cold blue. It wasn't code red.
Speaker 1: I was expecting code red. It's really cold blue. And
Speaker 1: you have little the doctors working on him and all
Speaker 1: that stuff, and the hyperreality of the moment. I never understood,
Speaker 1: you know, like this is another thing. It's life for
Speaker 1: death that you're here, it's life for death. If you
Speaker 1: do that, when you've seen death, you understand what death is.
Speaker 1: And when we talk about life or death, it's not
Speaker 1: that you know. And that was guilty of doing that too,
Speaker 1: Like it's not when you were in that moment, Oh,
Speaker 1: this is what we're talking about. When I had to
Speaker 1: call my kids and tell them their father had died,
Speaker 1: that's real. That's trauma. That's a moment in time that
Speaker 1: shakes your entire, your entire you know, humanity. And so
Speaker 1: for me that was a really traumatic experience. And then
Speaker 1: you know, making that choice to grow from the experience
Speaker 1: was like the most amazing thing ever, and so grateful
Speaker 1: that I was able to do that. How I was
Speaker 1: able to do that, I don't know. So for me,
Speaker 1: I feel and I have a spiritual life, right, I'm
Speaker 1: not very I'm not religious, but I do have a
Speaker 1: spiritual life, and I feel it something greater than myself
Speaker 1: supported me in that moment because my reaction was not
Speaker 1: like a natural reaction to what occurred.
Speaker 2: Oh that's interesting, or what if? What if alternatively a
Speaker 2: different side of yourself came out that was always within you.
Speaker 1: Possibly, but it was not natural.
Speaker 2: Consciousness.
Speaker 1: As he was dying, and I kind of blocked this out.
Speaker 1: But my sister was also there. She said that I started.
Speaker 1: I started. I tapped into gratitude immediately as he's dying.
Speaker 1: I was grateful to him as the thought. As he's dying,
Speaker 1: and I'm telling him, I'm so grateful to you. You know,
Speaker 1: you're such a great dad, You're a great husband.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: It's okay, don't worry about it. I got it, you know.
Speaker 1: And and so it was like a really not The
Speaker 1: nurses and the doctors were looking at me like this
Speaker 1: lady's insane. But that's how I could live through the moment,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: Of course, And well you bring a lot of this
Speaker 2: into your book. I just started, you know, kind of
Speaker 2: where your book starts off, which is really viewing pain
Speaker 2: and loss as catalysts for change. So you see a
Speaker 2: real great benefit to think of think of really hard
Speaker 2: life challenges in that way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, there's nothing you can do about it, right,
Speaker 1: Some things you can do you can't, like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as Irvin Yelm says, sooner or later, you have
Speaker 2: to give up all hope for a better past exactly.
Speaker 1: And and Fred Luskin talks about that too at at
Speaker 1: the Summit, the World Happiness Summit, And it's true, you know,
Speaker 1: But what I also learned, I learned so many different things.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that is so important to
Speaker 1: realize is that when you let go of the pain,
Speaker 1: and it takes a while because you need to have
Speaker 1: the tincture of time to heal some of the some
Speaker 1: of it, but when you're willing to let go of
Speaker 1: the pain, and sometimes when we've lost something, we hold
Speaker 1: onto the pain because we're afraid that if we let go,
Speaker 1: we're gonna forget the person. But what I have experienced
Speaker 1: in letting go of the pain. Is the love has
Speaker 1: grown so obviously not romantic love because my husband is
Speaker 1: not here. But I can remember conversations. I can remember
Speaker 1: moments that make me feel so loved even today that
Speaker 1: I didn't have access to when I was just feeling
Speaker 1: the pain.
Speaker 2: Something else another part of deep, deep reservoirs of strength
Speaker 2: or within you. Yeah, that, I mean, it's it's interesting
Speaker 2: how we want to think about that. But you know,
Speaker 2: whether it's something outside yourself or it's whether it's something
Speaker 2: that was hidden inside yourself. You know, I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: You know. I grew up in a third world country,
Speaker 1: so I saw a lot of pain, yeah, but I
Speaker 1: saw a lot of happiness and I saw a lot
Speaker 1: of joy in the midst of people who really really
Speaker 1: poor in like really unfair situations. And so there was
Speaker 1: a grit and a resilience and not avoiding and saying okay,
Speaker 1: our life is is great. And there's something about the
Speaker 1: Necaraguan people because they can make fun or not fun,
Speaker 1: but bring laughter into a really challenging situation and accepting
Speaker 1: the situation is challenging.
Speaker 2: Well. Humor, I think is one of the most underrated
Speaker 2: tools in the psychotherapy slash coaching toolkit. So I agree,
Speaker 2: especially absurdist humor. Yeah, I mean everything is so absurd,
Speaker 2: like I bet your your wife here, I bet even
Speaker 2: him just here in New York, traveling here, it was
Speaker 2: absurd like and then everything you know, everywhere you go
Speaker 2: in New York there's like some catastrophe. Right, It's amazing.
Speaker 2: You also talk about neuroplasticity and connecting with purpose under
Speaker 2: times of distress. It sounds like you went through both
Speaker 2: when when your husband passed. Is that right?
Speaker 1: Yes? So I actually I rewired my brain completely, like
Speaker 1: I am not naturally a joyful person or temperaments. No,
Speaker 1: I was, you know, I wasn't a glass have full
Speaker 1: person really no, And none of this came natural to me.
Speaker 1: That's what I was always I was since a little kid,
Speaker 1: had been courageous and perseverance. So I use those strengths too,
Speaker 1: and then analytical. So first I sliceaid, well, I'm going
Speaker 1: to live because I'm going to be a good mom,
Speaker 1: Like being a mom is super important to me, and
Speaker 1: so for that to happen, I need to do these things.
Speaker 1: And then made the commitment. And that's something else that
Speaker 1: I think is you know we're living in a time
Speaker 1: I think it's so important to build resilience and to
Speaker 1: build resilient kids. And I agree, And we need to
Speaker 1: be committed to I think you know, to be committed
Speaker 1: to certain things in certain ways of being. And so
Speaker 1: one of the things that I learned is that we
Speaker 1: have a to do list, right, every day we have
Speaker 1: to do list? But what about a to be list?
Speaker 1: What do you want to be today? You want to
Speaker 1: be kind, you want to be nice, you want to
Speaker 1: be altruistic, you want to be forgiving. You get to
Speaker 1: control that, and when you do that, you know the
Speaker 1: experience of life for me at least softens, and then
Speaker 1: I'm able to Okay, that's disappointing. But then I got
Speaker 1: like twenty seven other things were pretty cool. So it's
Speaker 1: I used to be focused on what thing, one thing
Speaker 1: I didn't get instead of the twenty seven wonderful things
Speaker 1: I got.
Speaker 2: Or even like the one person who criticizes you over
Speaker 2: all the people that love and then you call everybody, yeah,
Speaker 2: and you want them to sympathize with you.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and somebody I agree, agree, and somebody will be like,
Speaker 1: oh but I heard the compliment and not talk about
Speaker 1: that I need to talk to you.
Speaker 2: You know. Wow, so you really think you fundamentally like
Speaker 2: transformed eleven years ago. I mean, that's incredible. You know,
Speaker 2: your book could have also been about transformation, could have
Speaker 2: been about a lot of things.
Speaker 1: No, it is, it's but totally it is about a transformation.
Speaker 2: But I'm saying, I guess that could have been one
Speaker 2: of the words in the title as well.
Speaker 1: You're right, You're right. But you know, in essence, when
Speaker 1: he died, I was transformed immediately into into wife immediately, no, no,
Speaker 1: no wife, you know, like and then our family structure
Speaker 1: we went from four to three and as having a
Speaker 1: partner in raising children no more. So you like, who
Speaker 1: do you ask? Something that you know I talk about
Speaker 1: is that I felt like I was born again in
Speaker 1: not in the born again I saw Jesus type, but
Speaker 1: born again in that this is a new reality, this
Speaker 1: is a new identity. I don't know what I'm supposed
Speaker 1: to be doing, and I have very adult responsibilities because
Speaker 1: I'm responsible for exclusively for my kids in our life,
Speaker 1: and I'm feeling completely lost, you.
Speaker 2: Know, yeah, yeah, I mean there's no there's no set
Speaker 2: timetable for grief. You know, some people don't show post
Speaker 2: traumatic growth, you know, yes, And what would you say
Speaker 2: are some of the biggest, biggest things people can do
Speaker 2: if they want to kind of accelerate that growth process.
Speaker 1: Well, the very first thing I want to tell everybody
Speaker 1: who's listening is that it's possible. So just by opening
Speaker 1: that window into the possibilities of your life. And it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter if you don't know how. It doesn't matter
Speaker 1: if it looks super bleak, because it does, and you know,
Speaker 1: but the possibility that it can happen will head you
Speaker 1: towards it possibly happening, and you know, being patient and
Speaker 1: loving with yourself and some of the things that I did.
Speaker 1: For example, I remember that my nephew had given me
Speaker 1: the Christmas before a T shirt and it said I
Speaker 1: am Happiness. And I wore the T shirt after my
Speaker 1: husband died. Not because I was happy, but I figured,
Speaker 1: if we wear a shirt for a team, we follow
Speaker 1: because we're like fans and we support that team or
Speaker 1: what they're about. So I said, I'm gonna wear the
Speaker 1: happiness shirt because this is where I'd like to be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, behavioral activation, but the cognitions follow the behavior.
Speaker 1: And then the other thing I started copying what happy
Speaker 1: people do.
Speaker 2: How do you know who are happy people? Like? How
Speaker 2: do you know that?
Speaker 1: Well? I saw them. They look joyful, they look engage
Speaker 1: in life, they look like they wanted to do things.
Speaker 1: So that's not ha ha, but like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: they have energy, so they are creative. And so that
Speaker 1: to me was like, okay, that looks like something that
Speaker 1: could be happiness, right, And so that meant, you know,
Speaker 1: saying yes eventually to go and have lunch with the group.
Speaker 2: So I was.
Speaker 1: I told you I was doing my MBA, and so
Speaker 1: I would fly into Washington, DC. And I would originally
Speaker 1: fly in for the classes and fly out immediately, like
Speaker 1: the classes over, I had to the airport and come
Speaker 1: back because my younger son was still in high school
Speaker 1: in Miami. And then I started staying and leaving on Sunday.
Speaker 1: So then I would go to dinner with the group.
Speaker 1: And I remember one year out after his death. And
Speaker 1: there are two things about that. One is it's funny
Speaker 1: that you think it's like, Okay, you've passed the first anniversary,
Speaker 1: the first Christmas, the first New Year's, the first Father's Day,
Speaker 1: first birthday, and then it's like okay, now it's not
Speaker 1: gonna hurt because I've done the first one. And when
Speaker 1: you realized first year, day one that it still hurts,
Speaker 1: it's almost as impacting as the original laws because you
Speaker 1: realize it's a forever deal in one way or the other.
Speaker 1: So acceptance on that and letting go right and the
Speaker 1: other thing. I remember, I was at lunch with a
Speaker 1: group of friends. Somebody said something really funny and I'm analyzing.
Speaker 1: I'm like, ooh, that was funny, and I go, can
Speaker 1: I laugh? Is it appropriate for how long? Can It's
Speaker 1: been a year? But is it enough a year? It
Speaker 1: should be a year and a half. And I had
Speaker 1: this whole internal conversation. And then the same way that
Speaker 1: we talk about, you know, toxic positivity, like you also
Speaker 1: shouldn't block the fact that if you're joyful in a
Speaker 1: moment that that's okay, right also, And so I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna laugh. I'm going to laugh. And I laughed,
Speaker 1: and that was like the snowballing effect. What other things
Speaker 1: were to come that I said yes to because I
Speaker 1: allowed myself to feel around all my feelings.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the permission to laugh, that'd be another book.
Speaker 1: Permission to laugh absolutely, because we have labels right, and
Speaker 1: for me, when I heard the word widow, for some
Speaker 1: reason till this day, I think of like The Godfather
Speaker 1: or an old Italian movie where now you your hair's
Speaker 1: cut off, your your you went to the nunner or
Speaker 1: whatever you were in black for the rest of your life.
Speaker 1: And that's why I'm wearing pink pants, you know, thank you.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's these labels and I I you know,
Speaker 1: till this day, when you sign your you're filling out paperwork,
Speaker 1: like to go to the doctor, it says single, married
Speaker 1: or widow? What can I just be single? Why why
Speaker 1: do I have to, you know, go to that moment
Speaker 1: again as widow? And and uh, those are things that
Speaker 1: perhaps we can do away with, but you're only aware
Speaker 1: of it if if you're in that category. But those
Speaker 1: words mean a lot. And so I don't feel like
Speaker 1: in my identity that I am a widow. I think
Speaker 1: there's something that happened that that widowhood is part of it,
Speaker 1: but something else that I learned from Moga Dot, who's
Speaker 1: really great. He wrote a book called Self for Happy
Speaker 1: in many other books, but we connected really closely because
Speaker 1: he sadly lost his son tragically from an emergency appendectomy,
Speaker 1: and that then dedicated his life to promoting happiness at
Speaker 1: scale whatever. And he said that his son's name was Ali,
Speaker 1: and so Ali lived and Eli died, and he chooses
Speaker 1: to focus equally true, he focuses on the part that
Speaker 1: he lived, and so for me, I choose to do
Speaker 1: the same. Instead of getting stuck in the bit that
Speaker 1: my husband died and he died young, and you know,
Speaker 1: unfortunately from the flues, which you know still boggles my mind,
Speaker 1: I choose to focus on the part that he lived
Speaker 1: and the work that I do, you know, with the
Speaker 1: World Happiness Summit, is bringing legacy to the kind of
Speaker 1: person that he was. He's incredibly kind, he was a scientist,
Speaker 1: it was a physician, and so all of those components
Speaker 1: come up in my work and it makes me feel
Speaker 1: joyful and also gives me a lot of meaning and
Speaker 1: purpose to bring that way of being that he was
Speaker 1: in the work that I do today.
Speaker 2: Beautiful, let's move on to the part of your book
Speaker 2: where you talk about the importance of movement and breathing,
Speaker 2: very undervalued things in our society, with everyone so focusing
Speaker 2: on their work, right and not so, tell me a
Speaker 2: little about the importance of these exercises.
Speaker 1: So thankfully I had been doing yoga for about fifteen years,
Speaker 1: so the power of the conscious breath, and actually that
Speaker 1: got me through the moment of him dying. I just
Speaker 1: went into breathing, conscious breathing, because I could have easily fainted,
Speaker 1: but I went again, what do I control in this
Speaker 1: situation where I control? I can control my breath because
Speaker 1: everything was out of control, and so I tapped into
Speaker 1: the breathing. And I think that's something that we have
Speaker 1: always not I think, but we we actually have always
Speaker 1: within our control our breath in any given circumstance. So
Speaker 1: if you're you know, like for a panic attack, or
Speaker 1: you're getting news that are really challenging, there's a layoff,
Speaker 1: you know, your love life, you didn't get the answer
Speaker 1: you wanted, et cetera. You can go into conscious breathing
Speaker 1: and then that has all the reactions that are happening,
Speaker 1: you know, biologically through your body. That then is bringing
Speaker 1: you into coherence, which is really amazing. And then the
Speaker 1: other part about movement, So I see that into physical
Speaker 1: movement but also mental movement. Not get stuck. And you know,
Speaker 1: we all know about the growth versus the Mike fixed mindset.
Speaker 1: And so for me that movement is so important to
Speaker 1: go into the growth and then moving your body, you know,
Speaker 1: again letting biology do its bit. So where if you
Speaker 1: listen to music or or you move with dance, then
Speaker 1: you're bypassing cognition, you're letting biology help you out into
Speaker 1: into going towards greater happiness or or well being or
Speaker 1: releasing stress.
Speaker 2: Wow, wonderful. Any any particular people you followed that that
Speaker 2: helped you the most with learning breathing techniques, Any any
Speaker 2: shout outs you want to give?
Speaker 1: Oh, my goodness. So I had my yoga instructor in
Speaker 1: Miami who helped me out a lot.
Speaker 2: What's their name, So it's it's.
Speaker 1: Her, actually, Veronica Vidal. She's my yoga instructor. And then
Speaker 1: I became certified. That was before my husband died, But
Speaker 1: that helped me a lot certified. Yeah, yeah, beautiful.
Speaker 2: So you had a new appreciation of life right after this?
Speaker 2: And and so what what kind of message you want
Speaker 2: to get people who are are desperately trying to find
Speaker 2: any meaning in their life anymore?
Speaker 1: So, you know, I mean sometimes I can also say
Speaker 1: that I sympathize with whoever's going through a lot of
Speaker 1: anxiety because I have anxiety, so it's something that I
Speaker 1: deal with. You know, it's sometimes it's really hard because
Speaker 1: you get into this you know, yes, viral.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we all have our loops.
Speaker 1: We went to the loop and break you see how
Speaker 1: you can break the loop, and that means putting in
Speaker 1: rituals that you commit to. So, for example, I commit
Speaker 1: every morning to reading and journaling and meditating and whichever
Speaker 1: way you meditate, you know, whatever it is that whether
Speaker 1: it's prayer or it's you know, mindfulness practice or whatever
Speaker 1: it is. Breathing techniques, those are kind of hacks into
Speaker 1: the spiraling. And I go for a walk almost every
Speaker 1: morning for about four miles. Helps me a lot to
Speaker 1: be out in nature and to experience that. I listened
Speaker 1: to music when I'm taking a shower, so that helps
Speaker 1: me reset as well. I don't I don't listen to news,
Speaker 1: So for example, you get a lot of people like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, news are stressing me out, don't listen
Speaker 1: to it. And if you really need to do it
Speaker 1: in the middle of the day when your brain is
Speaker 1: not that susceptible, So don't do it first day, first
Speaker 1: thing in the morning or last thing at night. You're
Speaker 1: not imprinting good things into your brain and that helps,
Speaker 1: that helps out. But you know, if you want to
Speaker 1: tap into meaning, investigate it. You know, before this happened
Speaker 1: in my life, I feel like I was sitting back,
Speaker 1: sitting on the bus bench with my purse, waiting for
Speaker 1: the Happiness bus to come. And it had to be yellow,
Speaker 1: and it had to be a certain way, it had
Speaker 1: to be on this street, and like almost hit me
Speaker 1: with it. And when he died, it was like that
Speaker 1: park bench like blew up and I had to look
Speaker 1: at the bus was around the corner. Maybe it was
Speaker 1: actually a motorcycle and it was red. So I had
Speaker 1: to go and be active into finding the purpose in
Speaker 1: my life, into finding meaning, into creating all these different things.
Speaker 1: And so it's hard when you're feeling down because you
Speaker 1: stop moving, right, you stop moving. So it's so just
Speaker 1: go walk around the block of like one block, it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. It's like three minutes. And we think we
Speaker 1: have to do these gigantic things, but you don't. You
Speaker 1: just have to do a little tiny thing. And if
Speaker 1: you're feeling down, call somebody and offer help on principle,
Speaker 1: not because you want to do it, but you do
Speaker 1: it because you at least test how you feel afterwards
Speaker 1: that you done that, and if you feel good, do
Speaker 1: it again.
Speaker 2: People also tend to think that you have to do
Speaker 2: everything for some other reason. I like how you say
Speaker 2: we can savor just for the sake of savoring, you know,
Speaker 2: and Abraham Asa called them the b values, things that
Speaker 2: are values in and of themselves. We don't try to
Speaker 2: get anything else other than those things are ends in themselves.
Speaker 2: That takes a shift of consciousness. Doesn't allow yourself to
Speaker 2: do things just for the sake of the thing itself.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, absolutely, you know, at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: you have to have this conversation with yourself and how
Speaker 1: do you want to mostly feel in your life? And
Speaker 1: if you mostly want to feel better or have more meaning,
Speaker 1: invest in that invest time and it hires time, and
Speaker 1: it requires attention, It requires repetition, and it requires which
Speaker 1: is the speaker, which is the frameworker, which is the
Speaker 1: program that resonates for me? Or which are the practices
Speaker 1: that work for me? And start to maybe journal and
Speaker 1: see which are the routines that start to make you
Speaker 1: feel better and which ones don't stop doing the ones
Speaker 1: that don't make you feel better and start doing the ones.
Speaker 1: And it's not about avoiding responsibility or avoiding problems in
Speaker 1: your life. Believe me, I've had to tackle so many
Speaker 1: and now as an entrepreneur, it's not easy being an entrepreneur,
Speaker 1: That's true. But but then I have the conversation, right,
Speaker 1: do I do I want to you know, put on
Speaker 1: the world Happiness on It? Do I want to work?
Speaker 1: Do I want to work in a large organization? Or
Speaker 1: do I want to be self employed? And so when
Speaker 1: you go into yes, that's what I'd like. So then
Speaker 1: it's part of the process.
Speaker 2: You know, what is the World Happiness on It?
Speaker 1: The World Happiness on It is this most amazing, amazing
Speaker 1: event that takes place every March and no it travels around.
Speaker 1: It brings together the world seating experts and the science
Speaker 1: of happiness and well being with a global audience. And
Speaker 1: it's the experts and practitioners who who are bringing this
Speaker 1: work into organizations, educational environments, business businesses and how can
Speaker 1: we learn tools, evidence based tools for a happier life,
Speaker 1: you know, in individuals, collective well being, like I said, workplaces, schools,
Speaker 1: et cetera. And last year was in Lake GOMO. This
Speaker 1: year was in London and we were very honored to
Speaker 1: have the US Surgeon General, doctor Vivek Murthy there. We
Speaker 1: also launched our World Will Being Policy Forum with Professor
Speaker 1: Lord Lyard at London School of Economics and that is
Speaker 1: and doctor Murphy was there as well. That is our
Speaker 1: initiative to bring this into country policy and also education
Speaker 1: and business because we need the private sector in order
Speaker 1: to make this change at scale. Absolutely, And in the
Speaker 1: next conference in March in Miami, so I hope all
Speaker 1: of you will be there because it's going to be amazing.
Speaker 1: It's going to be in Miami Beach at the New
Speaker 1: World Center. You live in Florida, right, I live in Miami.
Speaker 2: It's your hometown. Wonderful. When did you start this conference?
Speaker 1: I found it will Haasu in twenty sixteen, and then four,
Speaker 1: no five months later, we had the first World Happiness
Speaker 1: Summit in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2: Look at you. We're doing us for so long and
Speaker 2: it's become a staple of the happiness summits. Yeah, very nice.
Speaker 2: You've become You've become a rising legend in the field
Speaker 2: of happiness studies.
Speaker 1: I'm very happy to be able to share what I
Speaker 1: have learned, and to share work, you know, like your
Speaker 1: work and the work of others who have dedicated their
Speaker 1: lives to to really bringing evidence and research into it.
Speaker 1: Because we know this intuitively, and we've been talking about
Speaker 1: this for what thousands of years and human happiness right,
Speaker 1: and and I love the fact that we have the
Speaker 1: science to support what we know intuitively and we know
Speaker 1: that it's the right thing to do. But now we
Speaker 1: have the metrics to also support that.
Speaker 2: Agreed, No no lives, no lives detected. There no lives
Speaker 2: detect you know. So I want to return to your book.
Speaker 2: I captured the moment when you said the world happiness
Speaker 2: on it, so we took a little detour there, but
Speaker 2: glad that we were able to talk about the world happiness.
Speaker 2: Let's return to your book for a second. Relationships, because
Speaker 2: you have a whole really cool section on relationships and
Speaker 2: what does it take to have a happy relationship.
Speaker 1: It takes awareness, decision making. I love the Powelski's they
Speaker 1: talk about positive relations the positive relationship.
Speaker 2: Hi, Susie.
Speaker 1: I love it when they talk about when you ask
Speaker 1: some your spouse or your partner to go to the
Speaker 1: supermarket and you ask for ten items and they bring
Speaker 1: back nine. So don't focus on the one day left out,
Speaker 1: which we tend to do. Right, That will go a
Speaker 1: long way in your relationship making, you know, focus on
Speaker 1: on everything and that's working well, and then address what's not,
Speaker 1: but perhaps through a constructive lens, you know, and really
Speaker 1: understand that we are our relationships. I mean, we're you know,
Speaker 1: we're nothing without people. Yes, you know, we need people.
Speaker 1: We enjoy people. I think the meaning and the reflection
Speaker 1: is in people. And so investing the best of our
Speaker 1: time is also important, right, It shouldn't be scraps of
Speaker 1: our time with the most important people in our in
Speaker 1: our world, because in our world, in our in our lives,
Speaker 1: we tend to do that sometimes and ah, they love us.
Speaker 1: It's okay, you know, and that's that's not fair to
Speaker 1: you and to them, because it's so magical to have
Speaker 1: people in your life who love like love is the
Speaker 1: most amazing thing. Like Arthur Brooks talks about, you know,
Speaker 1: happiness is love, and it's true. It's love, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's it's love. It's in personal love, it's romantic love,
Speaker 1: it's filial love, it's parent love, caregiver love. Love for
Speaker 1: the planet, animals, whatever it is, but it's this this
Speaker 1: amazing feeling and significance, and largely you feel that with people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, or animals sometimes absolutely. I felt that
Speaker 2: with your dog.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's adorable. And I'm sorry to hear they're stressed
Speaker 3: a little bit. So you said they were stressed a
Speaker 3: little bit too stress.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm very sorry.
Speaker 1: We spoil him though, we spoil him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, I want to Uh, there's a chapter I
Speaker 2: really like in your book on forgiveness. Can you talk
Speaker 2: a little about why forgiveness is so important in relationships?
Speaker 1: I love forgiveness and we talked about earlier. You know,
Speaker 1: Fred Luskin out of Stanford. He's spoken at except for
Speaker 1: the first one, at every summit, and he usually ends
Speaker 1: the conference because it's the.
Speaker 4: Hardest thing and the happiness that is forgiveness, and you know,
Speaker 4: for obvious reasons, because usually when forgiveness is involved, it
Speaker 4: is because we feel an injury and that's emotional and
Speaker 4: a lot of other things.
Speaker 1: Tied into it. But it's such an important thing if
Speaker 1: you want to be happier, because you allow fertile ground
Speaker 1: for your happiness to thrive, right, and that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that what happened is okay, and some things will never
Speaker 1: ever be okay. And you don't even have to forgive
Speaker 1: the person, you know verbally or they may not even
Speaker 1: be aware. You just have to really forgive in your heart,
Speaker 1: in your mind. But it's just the most amazing thing.
Speaker 1: And then of course if you're you know, forgiveness of
Speaker 1: friends and you know, misunderstand things in the day to
Speaker 1: day are also really conducive to positive relationships. But forgiving
Speaker 1: things that were done. You know, initially I didn't want
Speaker 1: to forgive the doctors who make the mistakes that caused
Speaker 1: my husband's death. That was hard to forget. It was
Speaker 1: really hard. It was really really hard. But what am
Speaker 1: I going to do with it? You know, what am
Speaker 1: I going to do with it? Because if you attached
Speaker 1: to unforgiveness and bitterness, it's taking more away from it.
Speaker 1: It's taking energy that I can invest in my children,
Speaker 1: invest in myself, invest in my business. My creativity would
Speaker 1: go down, my sense of hope would go down, because
Speaker 1: it's a drain, right, and so it's like one of
Speaker 1: the most important things, and some people they don't know
Speaker 1: how to begin, right, and just having a willingness is
Speaker 1: the first step, and and I really encourage those that
Speaker 1: are struggling with that to look at Fred's work because
Speaker 1: it's amazing. And we have our content, by the way,
Speaker 1: free on our YouTube channel, and so you can see
Speaker 1: the talks there.
Speaker 2: The World Happiness YouTube channel.
Speaker 1: Yes, the World Happiness.
Speaker 2: To put up.
Speaker 1: Yes, we wanted to do that because it's so it's
Speaker 1: it's amazing and against transformational and the talks are like
Speaker 1: they blow your mind.
Speaker 2: I bet how many people attend these.
Speaker 1: We talk about that round one thousand. And then we
Speaker 1: also do it online, so some people, some people join online,
Speaker 1: and we do more than that. We do different kinds
Speaker 1: of programs. So we collaborated with the Ukrainian positive psychologist
Speaker 1: a La Clemenko and we did two programs with her.
Speaker 1: One of them Marty was involved and Selement and so
Speaker 1: it would therefore people in Ukraine. And we did that
Speaker 1: for free, free programs, one called Resilient two point zero
Speaker 1: and over one hundred thousand people have participated since last year,
Speaker 1: so that's really it's really amazing. And so when people say, oh,
Speaker 1: well do you is it the right time to talk
Speaker 1: about happiness? Because that's another thing that I get is
Speaker 1: it the right time because this is where that is happening.
Speaker 1: And so the right time to talk about happiness is
Speaker 1: when you're ready to talk about happiness, right. And what
Speaker 1: I have found that people who are suffering they want
Speaker 1: to know about these things. And so in March, you know,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, we had a lot of interest from
Speaker 1: people in Ukraine as they were, you know, beginning with
Speaker 1: the war and such, and we got some requests from
Speaker 1: people who were actually in camps in Poland saying I
Speaker 1: can you know? They wanted to buy a online so
Speaker 1: we donated it. What kind of camps it just refugee.
Speaker 1: They were just refuge you know, they were just fleeing.
Speaker 1: Some people free access to the they wanted to They said,
Speaker 1: we're suffering. You know, we know that there's a World
Speaker 1: Happiness Summit. Can I buy a ticket or whatever? And
Speaker 1: so we donated those that access for free to to
Speaker 1: be able to listen in virtually. But what I'm trying
Speaker 1: to say is that you know, it's always the right time. Now,
Speaker 1: we never push right and show it in anybody's face.
Speaker 1: What we're saying is that we're a platform for this
Speaker 1: amazing work that people are doing, and that we're now doing.
Speaker 1: So if you would like to understand what science says
Speaker 1: about well being, says about happiness, about resilience, about great
Speaker 1: about forgiveness, kindness, meaning and purpose, here it is, you know.
Speaker 1: And so beyond that now we've done you know, we
Speaker 1: do workshops, and we're doing things in education as well,
Speaker 1: and and now moving into a women's initiative, So a
Speaker 1: women initiative. We're having the launch of the event at
Speaker 1: Gallop Headquarters in Washington, d C. On December fourth, and
Speaker 1: it's talking about women's well being at work because it's
Speaker 1: suffered a lot and me well, because one of the
Speaker 1: key aspects is that, you know, women tend to be
Speaker 1: the care the caregivers and responsible. Largely it's changing now,
Speaker 1: which is wonderful to see more of men's caregiving, you know,
Speaker 1: to to to children, but largely it's women. So that's
Speaker 1: very that impacts work. It's yeah, it's it's hard, it's challenging.
Speaker 1: So so we're going to look at that. And of course,
Speaker 1: when whether it's men or women, when one thrives, it
Speaker 1: trickles to the other. The same when when we do
Speaker 1: things for children, it helps also the community. So what
Speaker 1: we're trying to do is also go into different points
Speaker 1: we can help and shed light on different things that
Speaker 1: perhaps others are not doing at that moment, so that
Speaker 1: we can all thrive together and create what Liar talks about,
Speaker 1: the win win scenarios to move away from cerosome games.
Speaker 1: And that's from an economist, right, talking about creating these
Speaker 1: opportunities for growth.
Speaker 2: Yes, and Mas would call them synergy synergies. So enhanced
Speaker 2: spirituality is the last part of your book. What was enhanced?
Speaker 2: What is enhanced spirituality?
Speaker 1: So I, like I shared, you know earlier when when
Speaker 1: my husband passed away, I had this kind of spiritual,
Speaker 1: immediate spiritual I don't know what it was. It was
Speaker 1: like like a like a holding something. I felt like
Speaker 1: something held me in that moment. And so from then
Speaker 1: on I just have been able to tap into this,
Speaker 1: you know, collective humanity and the importance of all of
Speaker 1: us being okay together and tapping into the fact that
Speaker 1: we're human beingness right and so, and we're more alike
Speaker 1: than not even though we have all these differences. And
Speaker 1: that for me is spirituality and the things that bind
Speaker 1: us together and love, you know, that's that type of
Speaker 1: spirituality in that sense, and so the way that it
Speaker 1: was enhanced or that through the experience or through the
Speaker 1: post traumatic growth, is that understanding that we are all intertwined.
Speaker 2: Really wonderful all things are putting in this world. And
Speaker 2: I'm so glad we find me were able to do
Speaker 2: this podcast and good luck on your book tour.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, and thank you for all the
Speaker 1: work you're doing into making this world a better place
Speaker 1: and the highlighting the work of others, and your work
Speaker 1: is so really important in this world too. Thank you.