Speaker 1: As you say, balance is important, but I think we've
Speaker 1: gone too far to that side of things in this country,
Speaker 1: and I think we need to kind of pull back
Speaker 1: and look at more collective solutions.
Speaker 2: Wow, welcome to the one you feed Throughout time, great
Speaker 2: thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have,
Speaker 2: quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what
Speaker 2: you think, ring true, and yet for many of us,
Speaker 2: our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 2: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 2: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 2: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 2: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 2: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 2: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 2: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf.
Speaker 3: We've given our Instagram account a new look, and we're
Speaker 3: sharing content there that we don't share anywhere else, encouraging
Speaker 3: positive posts with wisdom that support you in feeding your
Speaker 3: good wolf, as well as in behind the scenes video
Speaker 3: of the show and some of Ginny and Iz's day
Speaker 3: to day life, which I'm kind of still amazed that
Speaker 3: anybody would be interested in It's also a great place
Speaker 3: for you to give us feedback on the episodes that
Speaker 3: you like, or concepts that you've learned that you think
Speaker 3: are helpful, or any other feedback you'd like to give us.
Speaker 3: If you're on Instagram, follow us it at one underscore
Speaker 3: you underscore feed and those words are all spelled out
Speaker 3: one underscore You underscore feed to add some nourishing content
Speaker 3: to your daily scrolling.
Speaker 4: See you there.
Speaker 2: Enjoy this episode from our archive with Ruth Whipman.
Speaker 4: Hi, Ruth, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Thanks much by having me. Great to be here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm so excited to have you on. We're going
Speaker 3: to discuss your book America, The Anxious, why our search
Speaker 3: for happiness is driving us crazy, and how to find.
Speaker 4: It for real.
Speaker 3: But before we do that, let's start, like we always do,
Speaker 3: with a parable There is a grandmother who's talking with
Speaker 3: her grandson and she says, in life, there are two
Speaker 3: wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One
Speaker 3: is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and
Speaker 3: bravery and love, and the other's a bad wolf, which
Speaker 3: represents things like greed and hatred and fear, and the
Speaker 3: grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second,
Speaker 3: and he looks up at his grandmother and he says, well, grandmother,
Speaker 3: which one wins? And the grandmother says, the one you feed.
Speaker 3: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 3: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 3: the work that you do.
Speaker 1: So it's really interesting ever since you first got in
Speaker 1: touch a couple months ago and said, you know, it
Speaker 1: was I interested in being on the show, and you
Speaker 1: told me about this powablem and I've never heard it before,
Speaker 1: and it's been kind of playing in my mind for
Speaker 1: the last couple of months, you know, I've been thinking
Speaker 1: about it and trying to sort of apply it to
Speaker 1: different situations. And there's something about it that's always made
Speaker 1: me feel a little uneasy, and I was trying to
Speaker 1: work out what it was. And I think what I
Speaker 1: got to is that this parable makes me feel insecure,
Speaker 1: that I'm not always clear which wolf is which, and
Speaker 1: I think that this is the problem with the modern world.
Speaker 1: I think all of our most interesting dilemmas in life,
Speaker 1: all of our most complex philosophical questions or ethical questions,
Speaker 1: spiritual questions. Personal questions are not generally questions of good
Speaker 1: versus evil. I mean, I think we know what evil is,
Speaker 1: and most of us don't believe what evil and are
Speaker 1: not trying to be I think that accounts with the
Speaker 1: vast majority of the population. I think our most interesting
Speaker 1: and most complex questions are between good versus good, you know,
Speaker 1: competing goods and so this is, you know, and I'm
Speaker 1: not always sure which wolf I'm looking at. You know,
Speaker 1: in any given situation, I will think that a certain
Speaker 1: thing is the right way to go, obviously, clearly this,
Speaker 1: and then you know, a day later, I'll change my mind.
Speaker 1: I think I'm maybe too neurotic for these wolves, you know.
Speaker 1: I think all my wolves are kind of mashed up
Speaker 1: into some more terrible like uber wolf. That it's like
Speaker 1: a horrible hybrid mutant wolf inside me that is a
Speaker 1: bit of both. And I guess, I mean, maybe that's
Speaker 1: what has struck me. I've spent you know, in writing
Speaker 1: my book America the Anxious, I spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time looking at the happiness industry, you know, the ways
Speaker 1: that you know, commercial entities try to sell us happiness,
Speaker 1: and I think, you know, as the self help industry perhaps,
Speaker 1: And I think this is something that's quite specific to
Speaker 1: the self help industry, that everybody is trying to sell
Speaker 1: easy answers. Everybody is trying to sell their being, their
Speaker 1: idea as the key to happiness, the key to righteousness,
Speaker 1: the key to good And I think what I realized
Speaker 1: is that what we need to do when we look
Speaker 1: at all these things is sort of maintain a quite
Speaker 1: a questioning attitude, and really to be quite cynical is
Speaker 1: probably the wrong way, but skeptical, to employ a bit
Speaker 1: of skepticism and not jump in and think, right, this
Speaker 1: is the good wolf. Here we go. You know. You know,
Speaker 1: I think we're all quite prone in the modern era,
Speaker 1: you know, to jump on the next good wolf each time, right.
Speaker 4: Right, And we do.
Speaker 3: We all want easy answers because life is incredibly complex
Speaker 3: and it's very difficult, and it is hard to know
Speaker 3: and figure out, and so we want easy answers. And
Speaker 3: I'm struck by how convincing the easy answer is. Even
Speaker 3: and I found this in your book too. With you
Speaker 3: would say I don't believe this, A, B, and C.
Speaker 3: And then you would find yourself going. But boy, the
Speaker 3: allure of it is really strong, and so I'm being
Speaker 3: called towards it, and so I am deeply mistrustful of
Speaker 3: easy answers. And yet when I find myself in a
Speaker 3: certain amount of struggle, I start looking at things that
Speaker 3: I previously went that's too pad of an answer, and
Speaker 3: going did I overlook that?
Speaker 4: And yeah, usually the answers no.
Speaker 3: I right, life is complex, but we do have this
Speaker 3: desire for things to be simple and easy, you know,
Speaker 3: to use you know, an example from your book, right,
Speaker 3: we all want to be as simple as I will
Speaker 3: be happy if I just write down three things I'm
Speaker 3: grateful for every day and that's it.
Speaker 1: That was a classic example the gratitude channel. I mean,
Speaker 1: we've all heard about this gratitude channel that we're all
Speaker 1: supposed to be keeping. You know, the end of the day,
Speaker 1: write down three things you're grateful for, or you know,
Speaker 1: write yourself a gratitude letter, or you know, there's different
Speaker 1: versions of it, and then you'll be happy. I mean,
Speaker 1: if that were the case, then we could save absolutely
Speaker 1: billions worldwide and antidepressant use in medical bills in human heartache.
Speaker 1: I mean, we know that it's not that simple, and
Speaker 1: yet people make a lot of money from selling us
Speaker 1: these easy answers, and it is an impassion. And I
Speaker 1: think the more vulnerable we feel, and the self help
Speaker 1: industry does tend to pray on people who are quite vulnerable. Often,
Speaker 1: not always, but often, you know, the more unhappy and
Speaker 1: uncertain we feel, the clearer we want our answers to be.
Speaker 1: And I think being able to sit with a certain
Speaker 1: amount of complexity and be able to sit with the
Speaker 1: idea that you know, actually things aren't simple and that's okay,
Speaker 1: is really helpful.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: It's one of the things that most deeply drew me
Speaker 3: to Buddhist teaching early on was this idea where the
Speaker 3: Buddhist said, like, don't just take what I'm saying on
Speaker 3: my authority, try these things in your own life and
Speaker 3: see what happens. And I find that to be such
Speaker 3: a deeply profound teaching because we are all so different.
Speaker 3: Our life circumstances are so different, our genetics are so different,
Speaker 3: how we were ray. I mean, there are so many
Speaker 3: factors that what we think. You know, even when we
Speaker 3: read a study and we can talk about how flawed
Speaker 3: so many of them are, but even when we read
Speaker 3: a study that says this is a good thing, I
Speaker 3: think it's like, well, try and see what works.
Speaker 1: That's interesting, absolutely right, And I think the thing about
Speaker 1: studies is interesting in and of itself. I mean, we
Speaker 1: rely very, very heavily on studies. And I'm certainly somebody
Speaker 1: who believe in science and in research and all the
Speaker 1: rest of it, in evidence based things. But at the
Speaker 1: same time, what is a study. It's two hundred college
Speaker 1: students who've been told to do A or B and
Speaker 1: what happens to them. I mean, this is a very
Speaker 1: specific population that take part in these studies, and usually
Speaker 1: it's you know, a difference of two or three people.
Speaker 1: You know, if you get a hundred students, you can
Speaker 1: get statistical significance with just a handful of them doing
Speaker 1: something slightly differently on one side or the other. And
Speaker 1: then we take this thing that you know, a couple
Speaker 1: hundred college students did a few years back in a
Speaker 1: room on a certain day, and we use this as
Speaker 1: some kind of sense of destiny for our own life.
Speaker 1: You know, I think we need to have a little
Speaker 1: bit of skepticism about what all these things are for.
Speaker 4: I agree.
Speaker 3: I mean, doing this show has been a journey for me, right,
Speaker 3: and I have been on it, and I think earlier
Speaker 3: in the process I really was like, Oh, all these
Speaker 3: scientific studies, and you know it must be true. And
Speaker 3: again I think some of them point in interesting and
Speaker 3: useful directions, but to your point, they are usual, very small,
Speaker 3: They are done on a very specific population and people
Speaker 3: in that in those fields that are honest. We'll also
Speaker 3: talk about what they call the reproducibility crisis, which is
Speaker 3: absolutely none of these the same thing doesn't seem to
Speaker 3: work when we run the study again, and so so again,
Speaker 3: I think, and I think with this something as complex
Speaker 3: as people's psychology, a study is only going to be
Speaker 3: so useful anyway, because it works for me, could be
Speaker 3: wildly different from you, even if you control for a
Speaker 3: few things, because you can't control for the huge complexity
Speaker 3: of people's psychological and spiritual lives.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And the other thing about studies. There have been published,
Speaker 1: probably over sixty four thousand research studies into what makes
Speaker 1: human beings happy. And I started, you know, when I
Speaker 1: was researching my book, I started reading all this stuff,
Speaker 1: which you know is fundamentally quite a joyless thing to do,
Speaker 1: you know, really, academic happiness studies. It's not a fun
Speaker 1: way to spend your weekend. But one I found pretty
Speaker 1: quickly was these studies are incredibly contradictory. I mean, you
Speaker 1: can find a study to say pretty much anything and
Speaker 1: also the exact opposite of that thing. So you can
Speaker 1: find a study that says that money makes no difference
Speaker 1: to happiness, but you can also find a study saying
Speaker 1: that it makes a huge difference to happiness. You know,
Speaker 1: you can find a study that says that feminism has
Speaker 1: made women unhappy, but also that feminism is women's saving grace.
Speaker 1: You know that mindfulness is great, and mindfulness does nothing,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So often the studies
Speaker 1: end up revealing more about the agendas of the people
Speaker 1: funding the studies than they do very much about actual
Speaker 1: human beings and how they live. So caution with studies.
Speaker 1: That was what I learned. Having said all that, I'm
Speaker 1: going to be very hypocritical here for a moment, which
Speaker 1: is that, you know, as I was writing my book
Speaker 1: at one point, which I got into quite a dark
Speaker 1: place in the middle of writing it, because I found
Speaker 1: so much inconsistency in the studies, and so many huts
Speaker 1: stairs and so many people selling false messages and all
Speaker 1: the rest of it. That I started to get to
Speaker 1: the point where I thought, oh, God, you know, this
Speaker 1: book is going to the conclusion of this book is
Speaker 1: going to be nobody can be happy. Don't even bother trying.
Speaker 1: There's nothing you can do. It's all a disaster. And
Speaker 1: I was like, God, no one's going to buy this book,
Speaker 1: you know, apart from anything else. And you know, and
Speaker 1: it was kind of slightly it was a slightly depressing message.
Speaker 1: But then I started to realize that there was one
Speaker 1: thing that was very consistent across all the research and
Speaker 1: across people's experiences that I spoke to, and it was
Speaker 1: this sort of one factor that really seemed to be
Speaker 1: pretty rock solid, no matter who was conducting the studies,
Speaker 1: who was funding them, almost to the point where it
Speaker 1: was so solid that if researchers were studying anything else,
Speaker 1: they had to control this one thing out of the studies,
Speaker 1: and that is the importance of human relationships. Social relationships
Speaker 1: and connection really is a huge, huge factor in our happiness.
Speaker 1: And you know, when I started to identify that, I
Speaker 1: saw it was such a patent that social support and
Speaker 1: community really is so key to our wellbeing. So I
Speaker 1: guess if there is a good wolf to feed, you know,
Speaker 1: that's the one Community and.
Speaker 3: Relationships listeners have heard me say this before, but when
Speaker 3: I started the show, I really thought what I was
Speaker 3: going to hear and learn was more of just go within.
Speaker 3: Happiness is inside. You know, you do that right, And
Speaker 3: I am a believer that there is a role for that.
Speaker 3: And of course there is a lot on this show
Speaker 3: that we talk about that. But the part that's been
Speaker 3: surprising to me and to your point, just comes up
Speaker 3: over and over like a hammer to my head, is
Speaker 3: the role of our connection to other people. How critical
Speaker 3: that is. And I actually would say even more than
Speaker 3: just connection to other people, connection to all sorts of
Speaker 3: different things, but other people is one that is so clearly,
Speaker 3: like you said, in all the science over and over,
Speaker 3: and I think in our own experience and we look
Speaker 3: at who people are happy, right, that all of it
Speaker 3: sort of confirms that good relationships help. And it's interesting
Speaker 3: because you talk about how our pursuit of happiness in
Speaker 3: the US is so individualistic.
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, I mean I think you know the US
Speaker 1: and the UK to a certain extent, but the West,
Speaker 1: but you know, the US particularly is a very, very
Speaker 1: individualistic society, and we believe in, you know, pursuing our
Speaker 1: own goals and doing our own thing. And I think
Speaker 1: the self help industry really pushes this message, which is
Speaker 1: happiness is a personal journey, you know, find yourself, be yourself,
Speaker 1: self help, self care, self knowledge, focus on the self,
Speaker 1: you know self self self self self. And actually, when
Speaker 1: you look at what the research actually says about what
Speaker 1: happiness is, it really is completely back to front. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's really the self help industry is really pushing us
Speaker 1: in this very individualistic direction when actually happiness does absolutely
Speaker 1: come from social connection. You know, it's quite misleading the
Speaker 1: agenda that they're pushing in a way.
Speaker 3: Well, I think it's interesting too because I might be
Speaker 3: wrong about this, but I think that one of the
Speaker 3: earlier uses of the self help movement actually was alcoholics anonymous.
Speaker 3: That is one of the early uses of oh it's
Speaker 3: a self help because it's not professionals. But AA is
Speaker 3: so fundamentally social and so fundamentally about other people. So
Speaker 3: I think even the term over time has gotten a
Speaker 3: little bit perverted.
Speaker 1: Just to add to your point, I mean, the AA
Speaker 1: thing is a great example. I think one of the
Speaker 1: reasons why historically self help has been so incredibly popular
Speaker 1: in the US is because there's much less of a
Speaker 1: social safety net. You know, there's less help from anywhere else,
Speaker 1: so you know, you kind of got to help yourself
Speaker 1: because there's no one helping you in a way. You know,
Speaker 1: you get very little support in terms of support with
Speaker 1: maternity leave or child care or you know, welfare or
Speaker 1: subsidized services or you know, these sorts of things, which
Speaker 1: you know, smooth the passage of life for people in Europe, Scandinavia, wherever.
Speaker 1: But I think you know that there's a real American
Speaker 1: tradition of self reliance, which is great in many ways.
Speaker 3: So the other point that you bring up in your book,
Speaker 3: which is a very interesting one that I think is
Speaker 3: worth talking about because I feel very similar, is the
Speaker 3: whole idea in the self help space that we are
Speaker 3: kind of completely responsible for how we feel, we are
Speaker 3: completely responsible. And while I find parts of that message
Speaker 3: to be incredibly valuable and incredibly important, and a lot
Speaker 3: of my background comes from people comes from the recovery
Speaker 3: movement where personal accountability and responsibility is so crucial, like
Speaker 3: actually going like uh uh, I'm the problem.
Speaker 1: Here, Yeah, this is me yeah, it's on me.
Speaker 3: Yet I also agree with you that I find so
Speaker 3: much of what is really appalling to me in parts
Speaker 3: of the self help or the law of attraction world
Speaker 3: or all of that, to be this fundamental sort of
Speaker 3: victim blaming.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think it absolutely is, because you know, I
Speaker 1: think you've probably seen the memes which say, you know,
Speaker 1: happiness is a choice, which kind of implies that if
Speaker 1: you're not making that choice, then you know, it's just
Speaker 1: a simple method of you know, you're not choosing, you're
Speaker 1: not working hard at it, you know that, And you
Speaker 1: see it in the positive thinking movement, you know it's
Speaker 1: just because you're being negative, or even in the mindfulness movement,
Speaker 1: you know, the problem is you because you're not being
Speaker 1: mindful enough or positive enough, or grateful enough, or you're
Speaker 1: not doing enough you know, meditation or self help workshops
Speaker 1: or the rest of it. And it does become a
Speaker 1: kind of victim blaming, and it's sort of this inability
Speaker 1: to acknowledge that there are systemic reasons why people are unhappy,
Speaker 1: you know, which are everything from your genes to your
Speaker 1: circumstances to your environments. I mean, one of the strong
Speaker 1: messages in positive psychology. I don't know if you've seen
Speaker 1: this very famous pie chart.
Speaker 5: Oh I have.
Speaker 3: I've referenced it before too, So please this is this
Speaker 3: is good because it is something that has come up
Speaker 3: on the show before, and so I would I would
Speaker 3: love to have you discuss it.
Speaker 1: So there is an academic positive psychologist, a professor called
Speaker 1: Sonya Lubermirski, and she has done this kind of graphic,
Speaker 1: which is a pie chart, which sort of attempts to
Speaker 1: break up you know, what the different components of our
Speaker 1: happiness are. And so in the pie chart, she attributes
Speaker 1: about fifty percent to your genes and your genetics, and
Speaker 1: then about ten percent, So this tiny little sliver to
Speaker 1: your circumstances, and that includes everything from you know, your
Speaker 1: demographic promotion, your race, your gender, your social class, your income,
Speaker 1: to everything that happens in your life that's beyond your control.
Speaker 1: So you know, whether you lose your job, or you
Speaker 1: have a miscarriage, or you break up with your partner
Speaker 1: or all those sorts of things. So that's your circumstances
Speaker 1: ten percent only, and then forty percent she attributes to
Speaker 1: your personal effort. You know, the forty percent is under
Speaker 1: your controls. So in her theory, it's four times as
Speaker 1: important to make a big effort than it is you know,
Speaker 1: what actually happens to you in your life. So you
Speaker 1: know this narrative. So I went back and had a
Speaker 1: look at where this data actually came from, and I
Speaker 1: found this thing was just absolutely riddled with errors and nonsense,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's just basically not true in any
Speaker 1: meaningful sense at all for a start, but also it's
Speaker 1: really quite a damaging narrative. You know, if you say that,
Speaker 1: just you know, there's just this tiny part of your
Speaker 1: experience and how happy you are, you know, is your circumstances,
Speaker 1: and everything else is your own fault. Basically, you know,
Speaker 1: you're choosing how happy to be. It's a kind of
Speaker 1: mass gas lighting really of people's actual circumstances, and it
Speaker 1: really kind of encourages this lack of compassion for people.
Speaker 3: I think, Yeah, I found the pie chart idea to
Speaker 3: be helpful for me, and it's I'm glad to hear
Speaker 3: you go back and sort of unpack the data that says,
Speaker 3: you know, you, based on what the original studies were,
Speaker 3: you could have really drawn that pie chart lots of different.
Speaker 5: Ways, right exactly.
Speaker 3: I initially found when I first saw fifty percent of
Speaker 3: it was kind of what is called the happiness set point.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: I originally was both depressed by that and relieved by that.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: I was depressed because I come from a history of
Speaker 3: depressive people, right, And so I was like, oh, well
Speaker 3: that explains.
Speaker 4: And so in that way.
Speaker 3: But on the other hand, I was like, oh, well,
Speaker 3: maybe I can stop feeling like this is my fault, yes,
Speaker 3: that I'm this way, and so then so fifty percent
Speaker 3: of it is that, right, which, again you can take
Speaker 3: that message is depressed or positive. You can say, oh,
Speaker 3: well I can control fifty percent of it, and I'll
Speaker 3: use the word control there in quotes, right, And then
Speaker 3: the rest of it breaks down into this narrative of
Speaker 3: only a little bit of it is your circumstances, and
Speaker 3: the rest of it is the effort you put in
Speaker 3: to volitional activities. Now, the way I have heard that
Speaker 3: talked about before, though, is that things volitional activities would
Speaker 3: be things like spending more time with other people, which
Speaker 3: we know to be a predictor of happiness. And so
Speaker 3: I think all those percentages can be debated. And I'm
Speaker 3: a big fan of another Buddhist teaching that listeners are
Speaker 3: surely here tired of hearing me bring up which is
Speaker 3: the middle way, which says that any extreme I am
Speaker 3: wary of. So people who say, like, your happiness has
Speaker 3: nothing to do with your circumstances, right, you can be
Speaker 3: happy in any circumstance, Well, that's nonsense, right, And people
Speaker 3: who say it's only about your circumstance, because that's where
Speaker 3: a lot of us focus all our effort. If I
Speaker 3: just change this circumit stance in that circumstance.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And if you're just you're a prisoner of what
Speaker 1: happens to you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then you know, yeah, if you get the
Speaker 3: right job, the great person all that you'll be happy too,
Speaker 3: which I also recognized to be a mistruth. Right, I've
Speaker 3: had good things happen in my life, and I very
Speaker 3: quickly adjust to them and can go back to my
Speaker 3: usual sad sack self if I know, if I don't
Speaker 3: watch it right, and so so I find I find
Speaker 3: either of those narratives to be very limiting, Like, of
Speaker 3: course our circumstances matter, and of course you know, people
Speaker 3: who have really difficult life circumstances suffer more than other people.
Speaker 3: Whether those circumstances are social or economic, or the way
Speaker 3: you were raised, or the trauma you suffered. I mean,
Speaker 3: of course those things matter, and of course the efforts,
Speaker 3: the things that we do to try and live a
Speaker 3: good life also matter.
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, And I think you're right. And I think
Speaker 1: part of what kind of riled me up about this
Speaker 1: particular pie chat was what was in that forty percent
Speaker 1: that they were advocating, So, you know, what was in
Speaker 1: the part that you can do for yourself? Because I
Speaker 1: think it was all these things like, you know, write
Speaker 1: your gratitude journal, your three good things that happened today,
Speaker 1: and you know, do some optimism maxim exercises and do
Speaker 1: your mindfulness practice and you know, and I thought, really,
Speaker 1: are you really saying that it's four times more important
Speaker 1: to you know, write down three good things that happened
Speaker 1: that day than that you know, your marriage broke up,
Speaker 1: that you're living in poverty, that you you know, these
Speaker 1: huge things. And I think part of the problem is
Speaker 1: it's this quite right wing narrative essentially, you know, it's
Speaker 1: this very I think there's always been this tension in
Speaker 1: politics between you know, whether people are constrained by their
Speaker 1: circumstances or whether this kind of meritocratic idea, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, anybody can make anything of themselves, the American dream,
Speaker 1: just work harder and you put yourself up by your bootstraps,
Speaker 1: which doesn't acknowledge that we're not all starting from the
Speaker 1: same place. And I think this is this kind of narrative,
Speaker 1: you know, that bootstraps idea applied to the emotions, which
Speaker 1: I think is often not that helpful. But yes, as
Speaker 1: you say, of course, there is something very liberating about
Speaker 1: the idea that we can rise a rise above our
Speaker 1: circumstances and still be happy in adversity for sure.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I found it fascinating. This I did not
Speaker 4: know right.
Speaker 3: About the positive psychology movement is that how much of
Speaker 3: it has been funded by the Templeton Foundation, which I
Speaker 3: also knew almost nothing about, except that they seem to
Speaker 3: fund what to me were interesting things about happiness.
Speaker 4: And so that was my extent of it.
Speaker 3: But tell us about the Templeton Foundation, because I think
Speaker 3: that will tie together your statement just a second ago
Speaker 3: about that some of these ideas can be very right wing.
Speaker 3: I think we need to make that connection.
Speaker 1: So I mean Barbara Arenright, who wrote a book called
Speaker 1: Smile or Die has started looking at this a while back,
Speaker 1: and then, you know, I also looked at it in
Speaker 1: my book America the Anxious, which is that the vast
Speaker 1: majority of the academic positive psychology movement in the United
Speaker 1: States is funded by one organization called the Templeton Foundation. Now,
Speaker 1: the Templeton Foundation was set up by a man named
Speaker 1: John Templeton, Jr. And he was a very right wing
Speaker 1: man and a massive donor to the Republican Party, to
Speaker 1: anti gay marriage causes, to the Christian right to all.
Speaker 1: I mean, he was a huge donor to right wing
Speaker 1: political causes, and he also had the Tempt Foundation, which
Speaker 1: is on the face of it and a political group.
Speaker 1: It's not a you know, it's not party political on
Speaker 1: the face of it. But everything that they have chosen
Speaker 1: to fund, you know, they are looking at the causes
Speaker 1: of happiness, and everything they have chosen to fund us
Speaker 1: is studies about how we can just try harder at
Speaker 1: being happy. So there are a lot of studies which
Speaker 1: are all about, you know, getting people who are poor
Speaker 1: or in bad circumstances and just making them try a
Speaker 1: little bit harder at being happy to change their attitudes
Speaker 1: rather than their circumstances, And there are no studies funded
Speaker 1: by the Templeton Organization about whether social justice would make
Speaker 1: a difference, whether about material really improving the lives of
Speaker 1: these people, about listening to people's concerns and acting on them.
Speaker 1: You know, these studies do not exist or they're not
Speaker 1: being funded by this movement. And I think it's set
Speaker 1: the terms of the debate before we've even got out
Speaker 1: of the gate. It's set up a whole academic discipline,
Speaker 1: and it's framed the terms of how we look at
Speaker 1: this question, you know, from a very right wing perspective
Speaker 1: before even starting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's so interesting. I never really connected those dots
Speaker 3: in my mind, and as a show, we generally stay
Speaker 3: away from getting too political. But I think it's a
Speaker 3: very interesting connection that all those studies are funded by
Speaker 3: an ideological perspective that says, yes, your happiness is your
Speaker 3: own responsibility, your life is your own responsibility. We can
Speaker 3: all just pull ourselves up and points away from something
Speaker 3: that you say very very well at one point in
Speaker 3: the book, and you say we need to think of
Speaker 3: well being as a shared responsibility other than an individual quest,
Speaker 3: and to develop a discourse of happiness that engages with
Speaker 3: people's problems rather than dismisses them. And I think that
Speaker 3: is such a I think it's a great summary for
Speaker 3: the entire book and so well said. And that's a
Speaker 3: way to frame up what we were just talking about
Speaker 3: with the Templeton Foundation.
Speaker 1: Right, I think so, because yeah, this isn't a party
Speaker 1: political issue. There are people, you know, of all political
Speaker 1: persuasions who are generous and compassionate and all the rest
Speaker 1: of it. But I think this is just a way
Speaker 1: of framing the question, which, you know, it's really important
Speaker 1: to realize where these ideas come from, you know, And
Speaker 1: I think when we're you know, I think if you
Speaker 1: go too far down that it's your fault, it's your responsibility,
Speaker 1: it's your fault narrative, then it's very easy to lose compassion.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: A big theme in the in the self help movement
Speaker 3: is the law of attraction. Yes, oh god, it's one
Speaker 3: of those things like if again, if I take the
Speaker 3: middle of the road, you know, the middle road approach,
Speaker 3: I go, there's a lot of there's a lot of
Speaker 3: ideas there that are true. Like I don't know, I
Speaker 3: don't necessarily think there's a mystical component happening. But if
Speaker 3: we focus on what's important to us, and we put
Speaker 3: our time and energy towards it, and we keep it
Speaker 3: in the front of our mind, we're going to get
Speaker 3: more of that thing. Like, I think there's some truth
Speaker 3: in there, but the implications of you take that theory
Speaker 3: very far are horrific. That the children being abused right now,
Speaker 3: they somehow attracted that to themselves. I think it's a
Speaker 3: it's a profoundly horrible idea, right.
Speaker 1: And you know, so that book, the secret whether Laura
Speaker 1: attraction came from. I went back and look, because she
Speaker 1: was promoted what's her name, Ronda BYRNE. I think she
Speaker 1: was promoted very heavily by Oprah at the time. And
Speaker 1: I went back and searched on YouTube and found the
Speaker 1: old episodes of Oprah where they were talking about that
Speaker 1: book and some of the stuff that they were coming
Speaker 1: out with. I was thinking, house, she really wouldn't be
Speaker 1: able to get away with.
Speaker 5: That now, I mean, holy wouldn't you know?
Speaker 1: There was stuff where you know, you know, there was
Speaker 1: this one woman and she'd been fired from her job,
Speaker 1: and you know, she had her boss had been really
Speaker 1: unfair and I can't remember the exact circumstances of it,
Speaker 1: and she had a young child, she was a single mom,
Speaker 1: and you know, Oprah's advice on the sort of, you know,
Speaker 1: as part of this whole secret thing was for her
Speaker 1: to go and write a gratitude letter to her boss
Speaker 1: for firing her, you know, not any sense that there
Speaker 1: should be kind of an you know, any kind of
Speaker 1: employment protection for her job, or that you know, perhaps
Speaker 1: she'd been unfairly treated or anything. You know, It was
Speaker 1: that she should go and be grateful to her boss
Speaker 1: for firing her, without looking at any of the circumstances
Speaker 1: of the case. And I was thinking, you know, this
Speaker 1: really is or another woman who her husband had left her,
Speaker 1: you know, had been gambling, I think, or had got
Speaker 1: into all this debt and had left her, you know,
Speaker 1: with all this debt for the wife was not her
Speaker 1: fault at all. And they were kind of pretty much
Speaker 1: blaming this woman for this whole situation and telling her
Speaker 1: that she ought to write a gratitude letter to her
Speaker 1: husband for all of this happening. And I was thinking,
Speaker 1: you know, this is just absolutely nuts. This is some
Speaker 1: kind of emotional abuse it, you know, and I think
Speaker 1: that our ideas on it have moved on over time.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's as you say, balance is important, but
Speaker 1: I think we've gone too far to that side of
Speaker 1: things in this country, and I think we need to
Speaker 1: kind of pull back and look at more collective solutions.
Speaker 3: That is an unequivocal statement that I can agree with it.
Speaker 3: We do need to look at things more collectively, and
Speaker 3: it needs to be more of a wee thing. I mean,
Speaker 3: I learned, you know, my sort of quote unquote self
Speaker 3: help journey, you know, started with my recovery from heroin addiction,
Speaker 3: which was profoundly shaped by the people that were around
Speaker 3: me and by the support that was available to me.
Speaker 3: And you know, all that stuff was made possible by
Speaker 3: a social support system as well as then all the
Speaker 3: people that I found that were there. And I do
Speaker 3: think that that's such an important piece. The thing about
Speaker 3: that idea of like write a grea attitude list of
Speaker 3: the person who fired you sounds completely nuts, right. It
Speaker 3: makes me think back to an idea though that I
Speaker 3: used to hear in twelve step recovery, which was pray
Speaker 3: for the person that you have a lot of resentment towards.
Speaker 3: And part of me is like, well, part of my
Speaker 3: reaction was well, that is crazy, And then the other
Speaker 3: part of it to me was, well, if I continue
Speaker 3: to hate this person, I'm the one who's ultimately probably
Speaker 3: suffering from that, and learning to let go of that
Speaker 3: somehow is probably a good idea. But I think going
Speaker 3: as far as I'm going to write gratitude gratitude to
Speaker 3: somebody who has fired me in a cruel and unfair
Speaker 3: way stretches that that concept a little bit beyond its usefulness.
Speaker 1: Right absolutely, And I think you also have to look
Speaker 1: at the power structures upricing behind all that, because I
Speaker 1: think it's one thing. You know, if you're in a
Speaker 1: pretty equal relationship with some body and you know there's
Speaker 1: a breakdown of trust or you resent them for something,
Speaker 1: that's one thing. And to let go of that resentment,
Speaker 1: I think is healthy and it's going to do a
Speaker 1: big favor if you do that, And to forgiveness is
Speaker 1: just such an important piece of social connection.
Speaker 3: I often think about this idea of responsibility and blame,
Speaker 3: yes right in our own lives, like where am I
Speaker 3: taking responsibility in a useful way? And where am I
Speaker 3: taking blame aim for something? So I just think it's
Speaker 3: an interesting idea be curious your thoughts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a really good distinction, I think, and I
Speaker 1: think absolutely. I mean, personal responsibility in our relationships is
Speaker 1: so key to having healthy relationships, you know, to admit
Speaker 1: when you've been wrong, to accept your own part in things,
Speaker 1: to not blame the other person or the rest of it.
Speaker 1: So I think that is a great way to be
Speaker 1: to be in a relationship as long as that relationship
Speaker 1: is basically one of equals. I think when when you
Speaker 1: are looking at something where there is this you know,
Speaker 1: complicated dynamic of power and you know, somebody having a
Speaker 1: whole own view, then I think that becomes quite a
Speaker 1: different equation.
Speaker 4: Yeap. And it's interesting.
Speaker 3: I have these conversations with my son a little bit,
Speaker 3: who is in college and very study in sociology, the
Speaker 3: sociology of race, a lot of environmental stuff, and we
Speaker 3: talk a little bit of about you know how he's
Speaker 3: sort of staring down these really big problems all the time.
Speaker 1: Yes, right, And that's huge for kids at the moment.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so it you know, what is the what
Speaker 3: is the proper relationship to all?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: There are these fundamental structural problems with the world that
Speaker 3: I want to change and what is the relationship then
Speaker 3: with my own mental health around those things. And it
Speaker 3: gets back to this idea a little bit of responsibility.
Speaker 3: And you know, recognizing how much responsibility we have, what
Speaker 3: we can actually change, what we actually can't change, is
Speaker 3: such a such a big thing.
Speaker 4: It makes me think of what you said.
Speaker 3: Very early when we talked about the two wolves, and
Speaker 3: you said, well, I think part of the problem is
Speaker 3: I can't the wolves look pretty close, right, Like I
Speaker 3: can sort I can sort out like, yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 3: can sort out the wolf that tells me to go
Speaker 3: stab my downstairs neighbor because they're making too much.
Speaker 4: I can clearly dismiss that wolf.
Speaker 3: I think it's sort of like the serenity prayer, which
Speaker 3: I think is one of the wisest things ever, right,
Speaker 3: And yet there's the reason why. It's like we're praying
Speaker 3: for the wisdom because my god, it's hard to find.
Speaker 3: It's so hard to know where should I push, where
Speaker 3: should I change, where should I accept? And it's so gray.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's so great. And I find that especially. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm a parent of three children, and mine are younger,
Speaker 1: but I find that all the time with parenting, I
Speaker 1: find that's like the absolute source of all of my
Speaker 1: biggest philosophical, moral, emotional conundrums. You know, I don't know
Speaker 1: which one's the good wolf. I can read something which says,
Speaker 1: you know, be stricter, and I think, okay, that's the
Speaker 1: way to go. And then I'll read something which says,
Speaker 1: you know, be less strict, be kinder, more understanding, and
Speaker 1: I think, okay, well that's the way to go, you know.
Speaker 1: And all of these can make a very very good
Speaker 1: case for being the right way to go. And all
Speaker 1: of them come from a good place. I mean, we
Speaker 1: all want to raise healthy, happy kids. But it's just,
Speaker 1: you know, how do you do that? That's the that's
Speaker 1: the question. You know. It's not, as you say, no
Speaker 1: one's you know, no one's really advocating that you beat
Speaker 1: your kids or you starve them whatever. It's just, you know,
Speaker 1: between these these good wolves, you know, people presenting themselves
Speaker 1: as the good wolves, which one is the way to go?
Speaker 1: And as you said about you know, this this question
Speaker 1: with your son, about how do we deal with these
Speaker 1: terrible things that happen in the world and these huge
Speaker 1: issues to deal with, and especially now I think we're
Speaker 1: at the kind of peak anxiety at the moment politically
Speaker 1: and socially, how do we deal with that and still
Speaker 1: preserving our own mental health? And I think that is
Speaker 1: a huge question. And I think are the younger generation,
Speaker 1: the generation of college students now I really admire because
Speaker 1: I think they are willing to tackle the big questions
Speaker 1: in a way that my generation was too busy getting
Speaker 1: drunk and ignoring it. You know, a lot in the
Speaker 1: world kind of burn and you know, so I think
Speaker 1: it's a tricky one because I think the easy thing
Speaker 1: would be to say, we'll just switch off from it,
Speaker 1: but you know, to preserve your own mental health. But
Speaker 1: that's not going to help. You know, we have to
Speaker 1: be informed citizens in it, and we have to find
Speaker 1: a way to stay engaged and to you know, to
Speaker 1: make changes and to fight for what's right and at
Speaker 1: the same time take care of ourselves.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think not only our college students wrestling
Speaker 3: with this. I mean I hear this from listeners all
Speaker 3: of the time, Like I'm watching this political train wreck
Speaker 3: and I can't turn away from it. And yet this
Speaker 3: staring at it all day long is just making me
Speaker 3: sicker and sicker and sicker. And you know, where what
Speaker 3: is the what is the right amount of engagement with
Speaker 3: that that is actually useful? And you know, I think
Speaker 3: we're all trying to figure this out. In my own life.
Speaker 3: I've hit a point where I'm like, if what I
Speaker 3: learn is going to cause me to do something, then
Speaker 3: I think it's worth continuing to engage and learn and
Speaker 3: and and listen. And if, on the other hand, it's
Speaker 3: just going to reinforce the same things that I already
Speaker 3: know that I already feel, then it may not be
Speaker 3: a useful thing for me. That the constant outrage about
Speaker 3: something that I'm not planning to do anything about feels
Speaker 3: to me like very corrosive, very corrosive for no good, right,
Speaker 3: It just corrodes me and the people around me. Whereas
Speaker 3: you know, I think if it's if it's something I'm
Speaker 3: going to that I'm going to engage in and do
Speaker 3: something about, then you know, I think it's really important.
Speaker 3: And so that's kind of where I have been sitting
Speaker 3: with it lately.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's an interesting way, because I think there's two
Speaker 1: trends which are going on. One is that there objectively
Speaker 1: is just a lot of very anxiety producing stuff that's
Speaker 1: going on in the news right now. I think that's
Speaker 1: just kind of a given. And the other thing is
Speaker 1: that we just have access to far more information than
Speaker 1: we ever have. You know, we have just you know,
Speaker 1: with our phones and just devices and you know, social
Speaker 1: media and just constant drip drip drip, drip drip access
Speaker 1: to the news. I think we're absorbing information in a
Speaker 1: very different way than we already have. So these two
Speaker 1: trends together, I think is just completely and utterly overwhelming.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think what you've said is really interesting
Speaker 1: for me. I think I've probably set the bar slightly
Speaker 1: differently because I think I accept that there will be
Speaker 1: many things that I will want to know about and
Speaker 1: be informed about that I probably won't be taking any
Speaker 1: very direct action on. I think I just because of
Speaker 1: where I am in my life. I think, you know,
Speaker 1: I've got three very young children, I have a job,
Speaker 1: and I want so I think, you know, I can't
Speaker 1: quite set the bar that the point that you've set it,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, if I'm not going to take
Speaker 1: action on something, I'm not going to know about it,
Speaker 1: because there are only so many things I can take
Speaker 1: action on. You know, I do call my senator, I
Speaker 1: do you know, sign my petitions, and I do make
Speaker 1: political donations and I do do things, but you know
Speaker 1: that there are limits on it. And so I do
Speaker 1: think being informed in and of itself is doing something.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't think it's doing nothing, But I,
Speaker 1: you know, I, like everybody else, really struggles to find
Speaker 1: the right balance. And you know, I do find myself
Speaker 1: getting overwhelmed and feeling very anxious and toxic. And I
Speaker 1: have tried to sort of compartmentalized by time and say, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to look at my phone or look
Speaker 1: at the news until such and such a time. And
Speaker 1: you know, I've tried different ways. I don't think I've
Speaker 1: hit on the right thing for sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think there is any any right answer.
Speaker 3: And I'm not quite as uninformed as that just sounded.
Speaker 1: But sorry, I probably made it sound worse than it yet.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, but no, I think it is. It is
Speaker 3: that balance of like how much time do I need
Speaker 3: to hear sort of the same. The other thing that
Speaker 3: I think is happening, which I think is a really
Speaker 3: interesting phenomenon, is that on one hand, we are very
Speaker 3: anxious and things look really grim, and you know, climate
Speaker 3: change is really bad, and on the other hand, by
Speaker 3: all sorts of different measures, the world is becoming a
Speaker 3: much better place. That is true in some sort of
Speaker 3: in some semi staggering ways. And so I think that
Speaker 3: that is another narrative that we mostly miss. We We
Speaker 3: might get fed schmaltzy feel good stories that sometimes are helpful,
Speaker 3: but I don't know that we hear enough about you know,
Speaker 3: how much better life is for the average human than
Speaker 3: it was one hundred years ago.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think that's such an important point, and it's
Speaker 1: such an important thing to remember. And you know, just
Speaker 1: as you're talking, I'm just kind of wondering, you know,
Speaker 1: something like climate change. This is one that I go
Speaker 1: back and forth on myself, because on the one hand,
Speaker 1: you know, if you hear, if you read one thing
Speaker 1: about climate change, you know, you know it's coming, then
Speaker 1: you're an informed citizen. And you know, do you need
Speaker 1: to read it fifty times a day in fifty different ways?
Speaker 1: And I don't know, is there something about the drip, drip,
Speaker 1: drip that actually is the only thing that will get
Speaker 1: us to actually do anything about it? Or is it
Speaker 1: is it the kind of thing you can know once
Speaker 1: and then forget about. I don't know. I think part
Speaker 1: of the anxiety does help me do lots of little
Speaker 1: things to kind of you know, in my daily life.
Speaker 1: It does sort of serve as a reminder. But yes,
Speaker 1: it is definitely in competition with my mental health.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, back to what we talked about earlier.
Speaker 3: Everybody is different, right, like, you know, because the far
Speaker 3: extreme for a lot of people of too much of
Speaker 3: this is then becomes complete disengagement, right like now I'm done. Yes,
Speaker 3: I can't fix anything, and I just fall into a
Speaker 3: state of depression and apathy. And so everybody's going to
Speaker 3: engage with these things differently, and sort of back to
Speaker 3: an earlier thing that we talked about also, you know,
Speaker 3: with studies and like what works for me, you know,
Speaker 3: what is it for me that is the balance that
Speaker 3: seems to work that allows me to move forward? And
Speaker 3: I was thinking about social media. You certainly have some
Speaker 3: chapters in the book, and by the way, I've not
Speaker 3: said this in the interview, I'm going to say it
Speaker 3: now for listeners.
Speaker 4: Your book is wonderful. It is hilarious.
Speaker 3: I highly recommend it, and I can't cover even one
Speaker 3: percent of how much good stuff and how much I
Speaker 3: laughed during the book. But you talk all about the
Speaker 3: challenges of social media, and there's all sorts of studies
Speaker 3: that show that night. So I'll get listeners said like
Speaker 3: should I give up social media all together? As social
Speaker 3: media bad? And I'll go, well, I don't know what
Speaker 3: is it for you, like, like what's your relationship to
Speaker 3: y Like what's it doing in your life? Because I
Speaker 3: don't know that there's an answer for everything, yes.
Speaker 2: And also not.
Speaker 1: You know, there's different answers at different times. You know,
Speaker 1: at some points in my life social media has been
Speaker 1: really helpful and other points it's just been a complete
Speaker 1: shit show. Sorry, can I say that?
Speaker 3: Yeah? You can?
Speaker 1: You know. So I think it's sort of it really
Speaker 1: depends where you are in your life and you know
Speaker 1: what's going on for you as to how you respond
Speaker 1: to all that stuff.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 3: Well, Ruth, this has been a wonderful conversation. I feel
Speaker 3: like I could do it for a whole lot longer,
Speaker 3: but we are at the end of our time here.
Speaker 3: So I want to thank you so much for or
Speaker 3: coming on the show and talking with me.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's been such a pleasure. Thanks so much for
Speaker 1: having me.
Speaker 5: You're welcome, Bye bye bye.
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