June 30, 2025 • 32 mins
Lili Taylor loves her acting career - but the emotional intensity of her work and the constant travel can take its toll. But Lili has found a way to relax and unwind - watching birds.
As Lili explains in her new book Turning to Birds: The Power and Beauty of Noticing - if we stop to listen to birdsong or pause to watch their busy daily lives - we give ourselves a break from our own stresses.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. Today on The Happiness Lab, we're continuing our series
on the unexpected creative ways that people cope with stress.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Can you hear me? Okay? Testing?
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Testing, And in this episode, I have the tree of
speaking with someone who's featured prominently in some of my
all time favorite movies. So we usually just have folks
begin by introducing themselves. So tell us your name and
who you are.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
And what you do. I'm Lily Taylor and I'm a
actor and I've done movies, TV and theater.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
This is actually not the first time Lily's voice has
appeared on The Happiness Lab. If you're a fan of
the show, you might remember our how to series on
the Happiness Insights of romantic Comedies. Back then, I shared
an entire episode devoted to say anything the Coming of
Age Movies, starring John Cusack as the love struck underachiever
Lloyd Dobbler. Lily played Lloyd's musician best friend Corey, who
(01:10):
performed the emotionally charged and now iconic breakup song Joe
Lies jo Lies, Julyes.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Jelies.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
I revisited the movie having not seen it since like
the eighties, right, and that was like one of the
parts that I genuinely remember it. Do you still play
Joe Lies? Or No, I don't.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Play it, but I get asked to sing it a
lot on the street.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Lily has had a rich and varied career since Say Anything.
You may know her from her lead role as Anne
Blaine in ABC's American Crime or as Lisa Kimmel in
HBO's Six Feet Under. Artists of her caliber often use
their work as a means of coping with difficult emotions,
a process that Freud famously referred to as sublimation. But
what happens when an artist's work is a thing that's
(02:00):
causing their stress? Where do you turn when your creative
outlet becomes a source of emotional weight. Lilli's had to
confront these questions throughout her acting career, especially during more
challenging roles.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Part of my job is that I merge with a character,
like maybe I'd been working with the character all day
and we've been in a really difficult situation, so we've
been crying all day, and then the day ends, I
need to leave her there and then I have to
return back to me.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
But returning back to her own identity after a tough
role isn't the only challenge Lily's faced in her acting career,
and even tougher stressor is the ceaseless travel that being
a professional actor requires. Lily often finds herself filming on
location far away from home. She has to upbrew her
life and travel to another part of the world at
a moment's notice, so I.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Can be in my little routine and then I can
be somewhere else very quick, and I can be there
anywhere from a couple of weeks to six months to.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Even a year. She found herself in this very situation recently,
a new TV series sent her to Santa Fe, New Mexico.
During the project, struggled with more anxiety than usual. She
was homesick and worried about her performance. Plus the unconventional
studio space the show filmed in gave her an eerie,
uneasy feeling.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
It was actually a school, a college that had been abandoned,
so it had even like a sad quality. You know,
it was full of life and now it's just like
empty dorms and tossed chairs.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Lily was used to a little discomfort while filming on location,
but this time was different. Her sense of stress and
disconnection was starting to feel overwhelming.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
And then I realized, I'm actually just afraid, afraid of
the unknown, afraid of the character. I was going to
be there for about five months.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
What could Lily do to make her strange space feel
like home? The answer came from above.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
What happened was these house finches started to sing, and
I was aware of their song wherever I went, almost
like I was the baton that they were sort of
passing amongst each other, and they sort of asked me
from place to place, and so everywhere I went was like, oh,
there's a song. There's a song, and I felt sort
of welcomed. So I realized, okay, wait, I can use
(04:16):
that right now. I can set up a feeder, a
bird feeder, so I have some friends, so I can
get to my neighbors. My little house finches were my
main neighbors, so this place doesn't feel so foreign to me.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Willie says that she often finds herself turning to birds
during times of stress, hence the title of her new book,
Turning to Birds. The Power and beauty of noticing.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
What I've realized about birds is, first of all, they're everywhere,
so I really have a friend anywhere I go, and
they're connected to where they are because they depend on
the environment, They depend on food sources, on water, so
they're almost like a guide, and there's usually a story
(04:59):
that brings me into other points of the whole area.
It's like, even if someone's not into birds, there's still
a pretty interesting way to get to know a place.
You know. National Audubon has upbrays Birds tell Us, and
I love it because, like, birds tell me what is
going on in New Mexico. They tell me there's lots
of different ecosystems, there's lots of different altitudes. They give
(05:23):
you a deeper sense of where you are. And like
I realized, I don't know where I am a lot,
like in a deep way, where's north? Even I don't
even know where north is? What am I standing on?
What's around me? I don't know anything. And when I
start to realize, like, oh, I'm standing on a glacier
that moved ten thousand years ago, makes me feel like
(05:44):
really a part of time, a part of history. So
if I'm going to make the new place home, one
of my ways in is birds. When I get to
know the birds, I get to know the environment, and
so anywhere I go starts to take on more meaning
in that I can be on the highway that can
feel lonely, but I know there's a river right next
(06:06):
to me, and I know that there's habita beyond her.
I know all these things that start to make the
place feel friendlier to me.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Birds also help Lily find peace after an emotionally draining
day on the job. They can help her finally settle
down after bringing a complex character to life.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Going to just fit and just watch some birds and
just relax, like I guess, would be my transition back
into myself. I guess, just the equivalent of a afternoon
martini that they used to do in the old days.
But we all need to find ways to leave the
job and go back to ourselves. And birds can be
a transition because they can just sort of bring you
(06:47):
from one world to the other.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
And that's why Lilly invests in creating inviting spaces for
birds wherever she goes, including that abandoned college campus that
she had previously found so unwelcoming. All it took was
a quick trip to the hardware store, some bird seed
and a bit of elbow grease.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
So I bought a birdhouse, and I bought a bird feeder,
and I bought a water tray, and then I bought
a hummingbird feeder, and then a whole habitat started to
get created. You can sort of make something out of nothing.
Life will come.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
So how did you get into birds in the first place? Right,
it seems like you have this deep connection with them,
But like, what's the origin story there? How did it start?
Speaker 2 (07:25):
I feel like I always knew about them, more than
maybe the average person. My parents put out a feeder
and water and breadcrumbs. I had an awareness of them.
I liked them. I thought they were interesting. But the
whole thing with me was I wasn't really noticing them.
And that happened when I had a quiet moment very
(07:47):
similar to everyone else's COVID moment where a lot of
people slowed down. During COVID people started to get into
different things, and some people did get into birds during
that COVID moment. Well, mine happened just fifteen twenty years earlier.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
At the time, Lily had been going from project to
project without a break. She was noticing all this sucological
signs of burnout. She was emotionally exhausted and feeling uninspired
by her work with her star on the Rise. She
could have kept pushing, but instead she chose to do
the courageous thing we recommend a lot on this show,
and something that I did myself when I was feeling
burned out. Lily took a sabbatical.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
I was so depleted and exhausted and maybe hadn't been
listening to myself. What's a great example of a door
closes and a door opens, sonus. We have to kind
of bring ourselves to that sort of heightened level right
in order to get a message. It's like a nightmare.
You know. Nightmares aren't necessarily bad. They can sometimes really
say hey, I really easy to listen to this, And
(08:47):
that's kind of what I had.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
During her sabbatical, Lily retreated to her home in upstate
New York, which sits on one hundred acres of protected farmland.
Most years, the property would be busy with incoming trucks
and the incessant buzz of farming equipment. But this year,
the farmers who tended the land chose to let it
lie fallow. They were giving the soil a break so
that it could heal for the future. All the usual
(09:08):
acts activity, all the usual buzz. It just stopped. That
silence felt like the perfect metaphor for the grace Lily
was trying to give herself, And.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
So things quieted down. I started to hear things in
a way that I hadn't before, and so there was
that space where I was able to say, wait a minute,
that thing that I'm hearing, that call, that bird call,
is not just a general call. There is something going
on there, and realize there's stories going on out there,
(09:40):
There's things with meaning, drama, mating, death, life, the will
to live. And so then I started following those noises,
those sounds. I followed it into different kinds of life
and start to look outside myself and see what's around me,
start to pay attention.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
In the book, you taught me something really interesting, which
was the Latin root of attention, which I guess is
tender ray, which is like tendon reaching towards which I
really love this idea of reaching towards How do birds
cause you to reach towards them? And what does that
do to your emotions and your sense of joy?
Speaker 2 (10:19):
So, I mean, they are full of life, they're beautiful,
they fly. There's usually some question that comes from just
watching them, observing them. That leads to other questions. I
think we're drawn to mystery, and so reach, reach, reach, reach, reach, stretch, streat, stretch, stress, stretch.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
But what are the emotional benefits of all this? Reach, reach, reach, stretch, stretch,
stretch towards things of beauty? After the break, we'll turn
to the surprising positive psychological effects of bird watching. We'll
hear about the power of awe, and we'll learn why
tracking a reclusive cat bird may offer the same benefits
as meditation. The Happiness Lab will be right back. As
(11:06):
a professor, I get to travel a lot for work,
and I'm often asked what's the best place I've ever
had the chance to visit? And my answer is pretty
much always the same. If you get the opportunity, I say,
find a way to visit the Galapagos. The Galapagos Islands
are a small volcanic archipelago about six hundred miles off
the coast of Ecuador. They're most well known for being
(11:27):
the spot where Charles Darwin began formulating his famous theory
of natural selection. And if you visit the islands, you'll
immediately see why they inspired Darwin so much. Because the
Galapagos are about as untouched today as they were when
Charles Darwin visited them back in the eighteen hundreds. These
islands are one of the few places in the world
where the animals aren't afraid of people. You can sit
(11:47):
and watch them closely while they go about their daily lives.
On a typical visit, you'll get to sorcle with sea
lion pups who twhirl and play all around you. You'll
get to watch giant tortoises slowly lumbering through the trees,
and marine iguanas chilling out in big piles on the beach.
But the real highlight is that you get to watch
the unique mating rituals of lots and lots of incredible birth.
(12:10):
The blue footed booby is the Galapago species that gets
the most airtime, which makes sense because they are really awesome.
They somehow manage to be both incredibly beautiful and incredibly
goofy looking at the same time. But my favorite Galapagos
bird has always been the waved albatross. It's a mostly
brown bird with a striking white head and a very sharp,
(12:31):
bright yellow beak, and waved albatross are huge, with a
two and a half meter wingspan. They're the largest birds
in the entire archipelago. But the reason I love this
species so much is because of its unique mating ritual.
Like many bird species, waved albatross mate for life, so
they put a lot of work into not only finding
the right partner, but also re establishing their relationships when
(12:54):
they meet up after being apart for the whole year,
and their highly ritualized mating dance is completely over the top.
One biologist christened it the ecstatic ritual. It's got these slow,
sweet parts where the partners use their sharp beaks to
gently caress one but it also gets weird, like when
the pair begin what's called their head swaying walk, moving
(13:15):
back and forth while exaggeratedly bobbing their heads across their bodies. Oh,
and then there's a comical moments of big fencing in
which the pairs start fake fighting one another as though
they're sword fighting with their faces. The entire ritual is
punctuated with these funny a hank calls am. But the
(13:35):
best part is when the couple just stops the entire dance.
They just pause and sit there lovingly looking into one
another's eyes. I've only had a chance to watch this
display live twice in my life, but both times I
was moved to tears. I was just filled with this
sense of overwhelming transcendence. This sensation is now something I
(13:56):
recognize as the emotion of awe, a feeling that the
American Psychological Association defines is the experience of admiration and
elevation in response to physical beauty. Awe is an emotion
the actors and bird lover Lily Taylor prioritizes experiencing very often,
and unlike me, she doesn't need to travel halfway around
the world to find a bird that will give her
(14:18):
the sensation. In fact, Lily meets birds who give her
a sense of awe in the most bundant places, like
the heart of Manhattan.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
I was going into Central Park and it's like three
hundred yards in from fifty ninth Street. I hadn't really
kind of connected to myself, and all of a sudden
I felt emotion. I started to feel like I was
going to cry. I was stopped. I was feeling a
part of something. I was in awe. Some feelings were
(14:50):
coming up that maybe I had been pushing away, but
they didn't kill me, and they weren't going to hurt me.
I don't know why I was afraid of them. They
just sort of wash over.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
I think that's one of the most interesting things that
we know from the science of a is that it's
not a purely positive emotion, right. It kind of makes
us feel small. It kind of has this fear component,
but there's so much evidence that experience it makes us
feel better. Ultimately, we feel more connected to people, we
feel more connected to things beyond us, And so it's
such a funny emotion because it's one of these few
emotions that like has these negative components, but ultimately taking
(15:20):
time to experience it makes us feel so much better.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Yes, just like planting your feet and just saying I'll
stick this through this thunder, this frightening whatever it is.
It's almost like you're open and then things can come in.
It's like receptivity can be really scary.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Another thing that gets to come in though, is like
the appreciation that we have for things. And these were
some of the most beautiful parts of your book. It
seems like you really do a lot of savoring of birds,
and this is something we know from the psychology, This
act of savoring noticing the good things, noticing the delights,
like that is what we need to have a fulfilled life.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
You know, I love that word. I hadn't really realized
how important that is. But I guess what birds have
helped me do is slow down. Because I move fast,
part of why I'm moving fast is getting away from
something inside. I was doing this more like in my
teens in twenties was like running from some kind of
thing that I thought was going to devour me or something.
(16:16):
I still move fast with. Birds have helped me slow down,
And so I guess I can just say, wait, am
I savoring right now? Or am I not use that
as a barometer, like, wait, no, I'm not savoring at
all right now.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
I want to turn to this idea of just how
helpful birds are in terms of slowing down. You seem
like the kind of person that would be sort of
into meditation and so on, But in the book you
talked about how that wasn't your path to kind of
being present. You know, I might be one of those
people that maybe meditation isn't good for me. I found sometimes,
especially in my twenties and thirties, that things got even
(16:51):
louder when I meditated to the point that I felt
worse when it ended. And so maybe I'm just one
of those people that I need like an activity or something.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
I need something outside of myself. Maybe I need that
extra help.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
And Birds were that for you? Explain kind of how
birds are like your meditation.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Well, I'm focusing on something that's not me. I'm focusing
on something that's a part of something greater that I'm
a part of too.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Talk to me a little bit about the listening skills
you brought to birds and how you're training kind of
in a very different domain. Was sort of helpful for that.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
So acting is usually one character is talking to another.
There's a lot of just listening. Like when I'm doing
the play, I'm listening for two hours an you know,
on a deeper level, I'm not to really take in
that other actor and be as open as I can
(17:46):
to them because that's going to light up my mirror neurons.
That's gonna set a lot of stuff in motion. And
that's really what's going on, not my own little memories
of whatever I'm trying to do for the character that's
not as interesting or as alive. So I find that
when I start to get into listening more as a verb.
That was a much more active way for me to
(18:06):
get kind of grounded, as opposed to I'm trying to
be present or I'm trying to be in the moment,
which was very vague for me, and I didn't know
what was the criteria, Like, well, how do I know
if I'm in the moment? There's nothing to hang on
too except judgment in a way or feeling like I
didn't get there, but listening, like I know when I'm listening,
and I know when I'm not, Like there's somewhere to
(18:29):
start with listening. And I've gotten more compassionate, I guess,
and that to expect myself to listen perfectly and one
hundred percent is unrealistic. It's not going to happen. That's
something I've used with acting. And then because I'm acting
a lot, I've been working it a lot, and it
because I realized it's a skill. Yay, I can do
something I can practice.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
As I was speaking with Lily, I couldn't help but
think of the work of Harvard psychologists and mindfulness expert
Ellen Langer. Lily's book celebrates the power and beauty of
noticing that come with being a burner. Ellen describes mindfulness
as the process of actively noticing new things. Like Lily,
Ellen was always frustrated with the common advice to be
in the present moment. She's even called the idea an
(19:11):
empty instruction. Instead, she argues that to truly ground yourself
in the present moment, you need to intentionally notice new
things about your environment, and research shows that this practice
has significant physical and psychological benefits. It can help you
manage anxiety, depression, and everyday stress. Lily uses this more
intentional path to mindfulness every time she notices something new,
(19:34):
a bird's song, their plumage, even a subtle change in
their habitat. So it's no surprise that Lily's getting better
and better at regulating her emotions more effectively, especially when
things don't go her way.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Birding has a lot of falling down and getting back up,
a lot of trying too hard, willing jumping the gun,
and so instead of yelling at myself, just being gentler
because I used to yell at myself. That's so not constructive.
And on stage too, It's like when I'm on stage
and I go out of the moment, you know, to
(20:06):
yell at myself inside. I know a lot lot of
other actors do that too, But that practice, I guess,
of going in and out, you start to just get
back in, Just get back look at the bird. Just
look at the bird.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
It's all we got to do. So watching birds is
funny because on the one hand, they kind of get
us to slow down. But I think on the other hand,
they can kind of just teach us that, like life
is going on, just do your thing and stop worrying.
Like is that something that you get out of birds too,
just kind of watching them do their thing.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Yeah, I mean they are moving forward. They don't stop
and hang around. They are moving and we should be
too in some ways, even if it's inside. We shouldn't
be resenting or stagnating inside our mind. We should be
trying to move forward in our mind. I mean when
I'm looking at the birds migrating in the spring, and
(20:54):
I know they've gone through so much and you would
never know it. They are facing obstacles and they just
their eyes are on the prize and they keep moving forward.
And I just think, well, I can too. They're a
power of example. Keep going, don't sit and fret. You
got things to do.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
You had this lovely story. I think it was a
catbird in Bryant Park where you sort of had to
realize and step back a little bit, share that story
and what you learned.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
So I went into Bran Park, and I thought I
was being really open, because like, I took a risk
to go into this park when I didn't feel like
going in, and so I came in looking for a
catbird and I was like, yeah, and I'm looking for
a common bird and I know a catbird. And I
went in really kind of like confident to the point
of being cocky, and I realized I really was like
I feel like John Travolta, like I'm strutting almost, you know.
(21:42):
And then just the bravado or that confidence just wore
down quickly, like I wasn't finding anything first of all,
not even a friggin squirrel or a house sparrow, nothing,
because I wasn't receptive. And then I realized I really
didn't know the catbird at all. A bird. I thought
I knew a common bird. I've heard a lot, seen
(22:04):
a lot. No, I didn't noticed it. Really, I didn't
really observed it thought about it. Where does it even
like to be? I don't even know where it likes
to be low high. So then I had a little
surrender out of being uncomfortable and beat it and overwhelmed.
So then I started with manageable. Okay, step by step.
Where am I right now? I'm in front of a
(22:25):
green thing okay, and I have this app by naturalist.
Let's identify it. It's called viburnum. The catbird likes viburnum.
So I've just kind of located myself somewhere with something.
Keep walking, keep walking, open, focused, loose and feel the
myopia coming in. Loosen up, in and out, in and out,
(22:48):
in and out cat bird. That whole thing probably only
took fifteen minutes. I was exhausted by the end. Once
I had the catbird, I was like, I'm done. I
felt like I'd benched fifty pounds and I should get
a break. That de feats the whole thing. Why not
stay now with the cat bird? Seeing that I don't
(23:10):
know it at all.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
And it's fleeting too, which is something at least in
my limited experience with birds that I had to come
to terms with. Right you hear this call and for me,
I'm like ready to pull out some app and trying
to figure it out, and then it's just like it's gone.
You know that the good things are fleeting, but also
it seems like birding has taught you that the discomfort
the bad things are fleeting too. Right. You know, you
could be kind of restless and kind of not wanting
(23:32):
to do it as you were in Bryant Park, and
then there's a way to sort of soften too. It
teaches us like both the good and bad parts aren't
going to be there forever.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
That's right, and we need those experiences to see, oh
this past because it passed fifty other times.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
After the break, I'll talk more wilily about some of
the surprising benefits of bird watching, and I'll share where
I'm at in my own birding journey. The happiness lab
will be right back. And a society that rewards hustling
to the point of exhaustion, it can often feel like
(24:06):
any time not spent being productive is time wing. I
fall into this trap a lot. I know all the
research showing that setting boundaries when it comes to work
is crucial for your well being, but it can be
hard to do. Of course, it's important to make time
to rest and move your body, but it's also just
as essential to spend time doing things for no other
reason than the simple fact that you enjoy them. Psychologists
(24:29):
have a word for these kinds of activities atlic as
in not telic, not reward driven. Think things like listening
to music, doodling, or reading for pleasure. Atilic activities not
only help us manage stress, they can also bring a
sense of purpose and meaning, which are of course key
ingredients in improving our well being long term. After an
(24:49):
author Lily Taylor finds that bird watching is one of
the most beautifully atilic activities around.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
It is an activity that is just for the sake
of And so birding is also a help because I
do like lists, I like results. I don't have to
have a goal with birding. I can just enjoy it
for the sake of and I don't have to break
anything home to show for it.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
And I think the more we allow ourselves to not
be doing things for these extrinsic rewards, like we get
out of hustle culture, we're not ticking stuff off the list.
We can do stuff just to be right. We can
kind of just get rewarded from what's happening in the world.
Right It doesn't have to be, you know, on our
LinkedIn profile to kind of matter. But we can sometimes
get in the bode where that's what it feels like.
We just have to be working all the time.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
It's allowed.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
We are allowed it, and this is just your way
to have something that's enjoyable that's not like work. It's
just not another thing.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Are you at Yale?
Speaker 1 (25:41):
I am at ya? Yeah, right, because Rick Prum is there?
Rick Prum, Yeah, who's my colleague at Yell. He has
this wonderful book called The Evolution of Beauty. But where
can kind of just argue is that, like we can
understand so much about even human beauty from understanding birds
and how they evolve so many colors and shapes and
things like that.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
He helped me realize I can just love it for
the beauty. I don't have to have a reason. It
can just be beautiful.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Another benefit that I didn't expect to see in your book,
but makes a lot of sense once you get into it,
is that birds have been a path for you towards
social connection. Pretty Much every available study onhappy people suggest
that happy people are more social. And maybe this was
my stereotype, but I didn't really associate birders with being
very social. I kind of thought it was like a solo,
kind of by yourself in the woods activity. But you
(26:23):
told all these beautiful stories of how birds helped you connect.
I think my favorite one was a story of a
downey woodpecker that you ran into in Brooklyn. Can you
share that story with my listeners?
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Sure. I was looking up at something in Brooklyn and
someone stopped, which is what usually happens, and he asked
what I was looking at. I told her I was
looking at a downy woodpecker. She didn't know what a
woodpecker was. I told her what it was, and we
shared a moment together, and the woodpecker flew from a
(26:56):
tree right in front of us to this hanging basket
of suet, which is fat. Birds need fat in the winter.
So the brownstone we were in front of was also
connected to something because they were putting sue it out
for birds. So if you add some stuff to an
environment like food and shelter, not only will animals come,
(27:21):
but people will come to You had people who were
caring and sharing something a little moment and that was enough. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
I feel like, especially in a city where a lot
of people think like, well, nobody's paying attention to each other.
Everybody's just anonymous strangers on the street. That was like
your one moment to feel connected with a neighbor and
to teacher something new. That's right, And so it seems
like there are many many benefits of bird watching. If
someone is listening to this and it was like it's
for me, how should I get started? What's your advice
(27:53):
to a birding newbie.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Well, I would just say just step outside and see
what's around, see what's in your neighborhood, and just maybe
stay in one place for a few minutes and see
if anything happens. And if you hear something, maybe walk
towards it and just see if you can see it
and if you can follow it, just for a couple
of extra minutes. It's like when you're at the gym
(28:17):
and when you start to get tired and you're like,
I want to get off this thing. You just stay
on that extra minute see what happens. And then I
would say, just like look out your window a lot
and see who's there. It's like, get to know your neighbors.
Put a feeder out. If you start to like what's
happening and you start to like, oh my god, I
saw that bird twice now and it's like cool. Then
get the Merlin app. It's the Shazam for birds, and
(28:39):
it just shows you there's so much more happening than
you even realize. So that's always fun. It's like kind
of like Christmas presents or something all around.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Okay, I'm so glad you brought that up because I
have the Marlin app, but I don't use it in
nearly enough. And so I was going on a hike
just kind of for exercise, and inspired by your book,
I was like, oh yeah, I should take out the
Merlin app and see what I hear. And that caused
me to start listening, and so I was like, oh wait,
there is some bird chatter going on. What is it?
And I pulled out the app and it was like
in my brain, it was like a bird, but it
was like a few weeks ago, we're having this conversation.
(29:08):
In me was like the big migration, and it was
just like a ton of good stuff I pulled out.
I had great crested flycatcher, at ovenbird, puffed tip mouse,
even had worm eating warbler. But that was like magic.
It was like, oh my gosh, there's this like incredibly
rich story that's happening. I don't know, I just felt
(29:31):
less alone when I started to realize how many other
birds were there.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
You just summed up the whole thing. I mean that
to me is the metaphor. It's like, I seem to
think there's less around, less meaning less stuff than there is.
And what that Merlin app does is it confirms there's
a lot going on and a lot to look forward to,
and a lot to be open to, more than I
seemed to think. I seemed to underestimate life out there.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Yeah, and this is a way to just feel connected
to more than you honestly have a thought possible.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
And I love that. It's like an outside in. It's
fine using an outside thing to activate the hearing. It's
like the Merlin was like, I'll start it off.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
For you, because then I saw like ten minutes walking
arount and trying to find them and looking up in
the tree. It got me to use the senses that
I have to notice this interesting stuff, which is.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
What technology is fantastic. If you really start to love it,
get a pair of binoculars. And then also the siply
guide simply is a wonderful ornithologist who draws birds and
he knows behavior, so you can learn more about the
bird and how to identify them and how they behave.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
I love you can just see your joy on your
face when you talk about these, making me my face
is hurting from smiling so much. I hope hearing about
Lily's creative coping strategy has inspired you to get out
and experience the wonder of birds. But even if you're
not quite ready to grab binoculars or to start tracking
worm eating warblers, there's still a lot of great coping
strategies to take away from Lily's story. First off, if
(30:57):
you find yourself feeling exhausted and teetering on the edge
of burnout, that's a sign that you need to seek
out a quiet space to reconnect with yourself. Second, look
for moments of awe, especially in the natural world. That
can be the sound or site of an unexpected bird,
but it can also be other things of beauty too.
There's transcendence all around you if you just take some
(31:17):
time to look. Next up, practice mindfulness by intentionally noticing
what's new in your surroundings, and give yourself permission to
take a break from your goal oriented mindset and embrace
at like activities. And finally, if you need a good laugh,
fire up an old DVD copy of Say Anything and
watch Lily's hilariously deadpan performance of the awkward breakup anthem
(31:40):
Joe Lies. And that final suggestion is a nice transition
to the creative coping strategy we'll be exploring next week,
because when the Happiness Lab returns, we'll be learning about
the stress relieving power of music. Wilmina Cellis, who found
solace in his instrument both for dealing with everyday stresses
and for handling a particularly difficult time that threatened to
(32:01):
change his identity forever. My fatigue, It's like I'm wearing
a coat of heavy metal or armor underneath my skin.
All that next time on a Happiness Lab with me,
Doctor Laurie Santo's
Pushkin. Today on The Happiness Lab, we're continuing our series
on the unexpected creative ways that people cope with stress.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Can you hear me? Okay? Testing?
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Testing, And in this episode, I have the tree of
speaking with someone who's featured prominently in some of my
all time favorite movies. So we usually just have folks
begin by introducing themselves. So tell us your name and
who you are.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
And what you do. I'm Lily Taylor and I'm a
actor and I've done movies, TV and theater.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
This is actually not the first time Lily's voice has
appeared on The Happiness Lab. If you're a fan of
the show, you might remember our how to series on
the Happiness Insights of romantic Comedies. Back then, I shared
an entire episode devoted to say anything the Coming of
Age Movies, starring John Cusack as the love struck underachiever
Lloyd Dobbler. Lily played Lloyd's musician best friend Corey, who
(01:10):
performed the emotionally charged and now iconic breakup song Joe
Lies jo Lies, Julyes.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Jelies.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
I revisited the movie having not seen it since like
the eighties, right, and that was like one of the
parts that I genuinely remember it. Do you still play
Joe Lies? Or No, I don't.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Play it, but I get asked to sing it a
lot on the street.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Lily has had a rich and varied career since Say Anything.
You may know her from her lead role as Anne
Blaine in ABC's American Crime or as Lisa Kimmel in
HBO's Six Feet Under. Artists of her caliber often use
their work as a means of coping with difficult emotions,
a process that Freud famously referred to as sublimation. But
what happens when an artist's work is a thing that's
(02:00):
causing their stress? Where do you turn when your creative
outlet becomes a source of emotional weight. Lilli's had to
confront these questions throughout her acting career, especially during more
challenging roles.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Part of my job is that I merge with a character,
like maybe I'd been working with the character all day
and we've been in a really difficult situation, so we've
been crying all day, and then the day ends, I
need to leave her there and then I have to
return back to me.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
But returning back to her own identity after a tough
role isn't the only challenge Lily's faced in her acting career,
and even tougher stressor is the ceaseless travel that being
a professional actor requires. Lily often finds herself filming on
location far away from home. She has to upbrew her
life and travel to another part of the world at
a moment's notice, so I.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Can be in my little routine and then I can
be somewhere else very quick, and I can be there
anywhere from a couple of weeks to six months to.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Even a year. She found herself in this very situation recently,
a new TV series sent her to Santa Fe, New Mexico.
During the project, struggled with more anxiety than usual. She
was homesick and worried about her performance. Plus the unconventional
studio space the show filmed in gave her an eerie,
uneasy feeling.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
It was actually a school, a college that had been abandoned,
so it had even like a sad quality. You know,
it was full of life and now it's just like
empty dorms and tossed chairs.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Lily was used to a little discomfort while filming on location,
but this time was different. Her sense of stress and
disconnection was starting to feel overwhelming.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
And then I realized, I'm actually just afraid, afraid of
the unknown, afraid of the character. I was going to
be there for about five months.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
What could Lily do to make her strange space feel
like home? The answer came from above.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
What happened was these house finches started to sing, and
I was aware of their song wherever I went, almost
like I was the baton that they were sort of
passing amongst each other, and they sort of asked me
from place to place, and so everywhere I went was like, oh,
there's a song. There's a song, and I felt sort
of welcomed. So I realized, okay, wait, I can use
(04:16):
that right now. I can set up a feeder, a
bird feeder, so I have some friends, so I can
get to my neighbors. My little house finches were my
main neighbors, so this place doesn't feel so foreign to me.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Willie says that she often finds herself turning to birds
during times of stress, hence the title of her new book,
Turning to Birds. The Power and beauty of noticing.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
What I've realized about birds is, first of all, they're everywhere,
so I really have a friend anywhere I go, and
they're connected to where they are because they depend on
the environment, They depend on food sources, on water, so
they're almost like a guide, and there's usually a story
(04:59):
that brings me into other points of the whole area.
It's like, even if someone's not into birds, there's still
a pretty interesting way to get to know a place.
You know. National Audubon has upbrays Birds tell Us, and
I love it because, like, birds tell me what is
going on in New Mexico. They tell me there's lots
of different ecosystems, there's lots of different altitudes. They give
(05:23):
you a deeper sense of where you are. And like
I realized, I don't know where I am a lot,
like in a deep way, where's north? Even I don't
even know where north is? What am I standing on?
What's around me? I don't know anything. And when I
start to realize, like, oh, I'm standing on a glacier
that moved ten thousand years ago, makes me feel like
(05:44):
really a part of time, a part of history. So
if I'm going to make the new place home, one
of my ways in is birds. When I get to
know the birds, I get to know the environment, and
so anywhere I go starts to take on more meaning
in that I can be on the highway that can
feel lonely, but I know there's a river right next
(06:06):
to me, and I know that there's habita beyond her.
I know all these things that start to make the
place feel friendlier to me.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Birds also help Lily find peace after an emotionally draining
day on the job. They can help her finally settle
down after bringing a complex character to life.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Going to just fit and just watch some birds and
just relax, like I guess, would be my transition back
into myself. I guess, just the equivalent of a afternoon
martini that they used to do in the old days.
But we all need to find ways to leave the
job and go back to ourselves. And birds can be
a transition because they can just sort of bring you
(06:47):
from one world to the other.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
And that's why Lilly invests in creating inviting spaces for
birds wherever she goes, including that abandoned college campus that
she had previously found so unwelcoming. All it took was
a quick trip to the hardware store, some bird seed
and a bit of elbow grease.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
So I bought a birdhouse, and I bought a bird feeder,
and I bought a water tray, and then I bought
a hummingbird feeder, and then a whole habitat started to
get created. You can sort of make something out of nothing.
Life will come.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
So how did you get into birds in the first place? Right,
it seems like you have this deep connection with them,
But like, what's the origin story there? How did it start?
Speaker 2 (07:25):
I feel like I always knew about them, more than
maybe the average person. My parents put out a feeder
and water and breadcrumbs. I had an awareness of them.
I liked them. I thought they were interesting. But the
whole thing with me was I wasn't really noticing them.
And that happened when I had a quiet moment very
(07:47):
similar to everyone else's COVID moment where a lot of
people slowed down. During COVID people started to get into
different things, and some people did get into birds during
that COVID moment. Well, mine happened just fifteen twenty years earlier.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
At the time, Lily had been going from project to
project without a break. She was noticing all this sucological
signs of burnout. She was emotionally exhausted and feeling uninspired
by her work with her star on the Rise. She
could have kept pushing, but instead she chose to do
the courageous thing we recommend a lot on this show,
and something that I did myself when I was feeling
burned out. Lily took a sabbatical.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
I was so depleted and exhausted and maybe hadn't been
listening to myself. What's a great example of a door
closes and a door opens, sonus. We have to kind
of bring ourselves to that sort of heightened level right
in order to get a message. It's like a nightmare.
You know. Nightmares aren't necessarily bad. They can sometimes really
say hey, I really easy to listen to this, And
(08:47):
that's kind of what I had.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
During her sabbatical, Lily retreated to her home in upstate
New York, which sits on one hundred acres of protected farmland.
Most years, the property would be busy with incoming trucks
and the incessant buzz of farming equipment. But this year,
the farmers who tended the land chose to let it
lie fallow. They were giving the soil a break so
that it could heal for the future. All the usual
(09:08):
acts activity, all the usual buzz. It just stopped. That
silence felt like the perfect metaphor for the grace Lily
was trying to give herself, And.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
So things quieted down. I started to hear things in
a way that I hadn't before, and so there was
that space where I was able to say, wait a minute,
that thing that I'm hearing, that call, that bird call,
is not just a general call. There is something going
on there, and realize there's stories going on out there,
(09:40):
There's things with meaning, drama, mating, death, life, the will
to live. And so then I started following those noises,
those sounds. I followed it into different kinds of life
and start to look outside myself and see what's around me,
start to pay attention.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
In the book, you taught me something really interesting, which
was the Latin root of attention, which I guess is
tender ray, which is like tendon reaching towards which I
really love this idea of reaching towards How do birds
cause you to reach towards them? And what does that
do to your emotions and your sense of joy?
Speaker 2 (10:19):
So, I mean, they are full of life, they're beautiful,
they fly. There's usually some question that comes from just
watching them, observing them. That leads to other questions. I
think we're drawn to mystery, and so reach, reach, reach, reach, reach, stretch, streat, stretch, stress, stretch.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
But what are the emotional benefits of all this? Reach, reach, reach, stretch, stretch,
stretch towards things of beauty? After the break, we'll turn
to the surprising positive psychological effects of bird watching. We'll
hear about the power of awe, and we'll learn why
tracking a reclusive cat bird may offer the same benefits
as meditation. The Happiness Lab will be right back. As
(11:06):
a professor, I get to travel a lot for work,
and I'm often asked what's the best place I've ever
had the chance to visit? And my answer is pretty
much always the same. If you get the opportunity, I say,
find a way to visit the Galapagos. The Galapagos Islands
are a small volcanic archipelago about six hundred miles off
the coast of Ecuador. They're most well known for being
(11:27):
the spot where Charles Darwin began formulating his famous theory
of natural selection. And if you visit the islands, you'll
immediately see why they inspired Darwin so much. Because the
Galapagos are about as untouched today as they were when
Charles Darwin visited them back in the eighteen hundreds. These
islands are one of the few places in the world
where the animals aren't afraid of people. You can sit
(11:47):
and watch them closely while they go about their daily lives.
On a typical visit, you'll get to sorcle with sea
lion pups who twhirl and play all around you. You'll
get to watch giant tortoises slowly lumbering through the trees,
and marine iguanas chilling out in big piles on the beach.
But the real highlight is that you get to watch
the unique mating rituals of lots and lots of incredible birth.
(12:10):
The blue footed booby is the Galapago species that gets
the most airtime, which makes sense because they are really awesome.
They somehow manage to be both incredibly beautiful and incredibly
goofy looking at the same time. But my favorite Galapagos
bird has always been the waved albatross. It's a mostly
brown bird with a striking white head and a very sharp,
(12:31):
bright yellow beak, and waved albatross are huge, with a
two and a half meter wingspan. They're the largest birds
in the entire archipelago. But the reason I love this
species so much is because of its unique mating ritual.
Like many bird species, waved albatross mate for life, so
they put a lot of work into not only finding
the right partner, but also re establishing their relationships when
(12:54):
they meet up after being apart for the whole year,
and their highly ritualized mating dance is completely over the top.
One biologist christened it the ecstatic ritual. It's got these slow,
sweet parts where the partners use their sharp beaks to
gently caress one but it also gets weird, like when
the pair begin what's called their head swaying walk, moving
(13:15):
back and forth while exaggeratedly bobbing their heads across their bodies. Oh,
and then there's a comical moments of big fencing in
which the pairs start fake fighting one another as though
they're sword fighting with their faces. The entire ritual is
punctuated with these funny a hank calls am. But the
(13:35):
best part is when the couple just stops the entire dance.
They just pause and sit there lovingly looking into one
another's eyes. I've only had a chance to watch this
display live twice in my life, but both times I
was moved to tears. I was just filled with this
sense of overwhelming transcendence. This sensation is now something I
(13:56):
recognize as the emotion of awe, a feeling that the
American Psychological Association defines is the experience of admiration and
elevation in response to physical beauty. Awe is an emotion
the actors and bird lover Lily Taylor prioritizes experiencing very often,
and unlike me, she doesn't need to travel halfway around
the world to find a bird that will give her
(14:18):
the sensation. In fact, Lily meets birds who give her
a sense of awe in the most bundant places, like
the heart of Manhattan.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
I was going into Central Park and it's like three
hundred yards in from fifty ninth Street. I hadn't really
kind of connected to myself, and all of a sudden
I felt emotion. I started to feel like I was
going to cry. I was stopped. I was feeling a
part of something. I was in awe. Some feelings were
(14:50):
coming up that maybe I had been pushing away, but
they didn't kill me, and they weren't going to hurt me.
I don't know why I was afraid of them. They
just sort of wash over.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
I think that's one of the most interesting things that
we know from the science of a is that it's
not a purely positive emotion, right. It kind of makes
us feel small. It kind of has this fear component,
but there's so much evidence that experience it makes us
feel better. Ultimately, we feel more connected to people, we
feel more connected to things beyond us, And so it's
such a funny emotion because it's one of these few
emotions that like has these negative components, but ultimately taking
(15:20):
time to experience it makes us feel so much better.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Yes, just like planting your feet and just saying I'll
stick this through this thunder, this frightening whatever it is.
It's almost like you're open and then things can come in.
It's like receptivity can be really scary.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Another thing that gets to come in though, is like
the appreciation that we have for things. And these were
some of the most beautiful parts of your book. It
seems like you really do a lot of savoring of birds,
and this is something we know from the psychology, This
act of savoring noticing the good things, noticing the delights,
like that is what we need to have a fulfilled life.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
You know, I love that word. I hadn't really realized
how important that is. But I guess what birds have
helped me do is slow down. Because I move fast,
part of why I'm moving fast is getting away from
something inside. I was doing this more like in my
teens in twenties was like running from some kind of
thing that I thought was going to devour me or something.
(16:16):
I still move fast with. Birds have helped me slow down,
And so I guess I can just say, wait, am
I savoring right now? Or am I not use that
as a barometer, like, wait, no, I'm not savoring at
all right now.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
I want to turn to this idea of just how
helpful birds are in terms of slowing down. You seem
like the kind of person that would be sort of
into meditation and so on, But in the book you
talked about how that wasn't your path to kind of
being present. You know, I might be one of those
people that maybe meditation isn't good for me. I found sometimes,
especially in my twenties and thirties, that things got even
(16:51):
louder when I meditated to the point that I felt
worse when it ended. And so maybe I'm just one
of those people that I need like an activity or something.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
I need something outside of myself. Maybe I need that
extra help.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
And Birds were that for you? Explain kind of how
birds are like your meditation.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Well, I'm focusing on something that's not me. I'm focusing
on something that's a part of something greater that I'm
a part of too.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Talk to me a little bit about the listening skills
you brought to birds and how you're training kind of
in a very different domain. Was sort of helpful for that.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
So acting is usually one character is talking to another.
There's a lot of just listening. Like when I'm doing
the play, I'm listening for two hours an you know,
on a deeper level, I'm not to really take in
that other actor and be as open as I can
(17:46):
to them because that's going to light up my mirror neurons.
That's gonna set a lot of stuff in motion. And
that's really what's going on, not my own little memories
of whatever I'm trying to do for the character that's
not as interesting or as alive. So I find that
when I start to get into listening more as a verb.
That was a much more active way for me to
(18:06):
get kind of grounded, as opposed to I'm trying to
be present or I'm trying to be in the moment,
which was very vague for me, and I didn't know
what was the criteria, Like, well, how do I know
if I'm in the moment? There's nothing to hang on
too except judgment in a way or feeling like I
didn't get there, but listening, like I know when I'm listening,
and I know when I'm not, Like there's somewhere to
(18:29):
start with listening. And I've gotten more compassionate, I guess,
and that to expect myself to listen perfectly and one
hundred percent is unrealistic. It's not going to happen. That's
something I've used with acting. And then because I'm acting
a lot, I've been working it a lot, and it
because I realized it's a skill. Yay, I can do
something I can practice.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
As I was speaking with Lily, I couldn't help but
think of the work of Harvard psychologists and mindfulness expert
Ellen Langer. Lily's book celebrates the power and beauty of
noticing that come with being a burner. Ellen describes mindfulness
as the process of actively noticing new things. Like Lily,
Ellen was always frustrated with the common advice to be
in the present moment. She's even called the idea an
(19:11):
empty instruction. Instead, she argues that to truly ground yourself
in the present moment, you need to intentionally notice new
things about your environment, and research shows that this practice
has significant physical and psychological benefits. It can help you
manage anxiety, depression, and everyday stress. Lily uses this more
intentional path to mindfulness every time she notices something new,
(19:34):
a bird's song, their plumage, even a subtle change in
their habitat. So it's no surprise that Lily's getting better
and better at regulating her emotions more effectively, especially when
things don't go her way.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Birding has a lot of falling down and getting back up,
a lot of trying too hard, willing jumping the gun,
and so instead of yelling at myself, just being gentler
because I used to yell at myself. That's so not constructive.
And on stage too, It's like when I'm on stage
and I go out of the moment, you know, to
(20:06):
yell at myself inside. I know a lot lot of
other actors do that too, But that practice, I guess,
of going in and out, you start to just get
back in, Just get back look at the bird. Just
look at the bird.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
It's all we got to do. So watching birds is
funny because on the one hand, they kind of get
us to slow down. But I think on the other hand,
they can kind of just teach us that, like life
is going on, just do your thing and stop worrying.
Like is that something that you get out of birds too,
just kind of watching them do their thing.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Yeah, I mean they are moving forward. They don't stop
and hang around. They are moving and we should be
too in some ways, even if it's inside. We shouldn't
be resenting or stagnating inside our mind. We should be
trying to move forward in our mind. I mean when
I'm looking at the birds migrating in the spring, and
(20:54):
I know they've gone through so much and you would
never know it. They are facing obstacles and they just
their eyes are on the prize and they keep moving forward.
And I just think, well, I can too. They're a
power of example. Keep going, don't sit and fret. You
got things to do.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
You had this lovely story. I think it was a
catbird in Bryant Park where you sort of had to
realize and step back a little bit, share that story
and what you learned.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
So I went into Bran Park, and I thought I
was being really open, because like, I took a risk
to go into this park when I didn't feel like
going in, and so I came in looking for a
catbird and I was like, yeah, and I'm looking for
a common bird and I know a catbird. And I
went in really kind of like confident to the point
of being cocky, and I realized I really was like
I feel like John Travolta, like I'm strutting almost, you know.
(21:42):
And then just the bravado or that confidence just wore
down quickly, like I wasn't finding anything first of all,
not even a friggin squirrel or a house sparrow, nothing,
because I wasn't receptive. And then I realized I really
didn't know the catbird at all. A bird. I thought
I knew a common bird. I've heard a lot, seen
(22:04):
a lot. No, I didn't noticed it. Really, I didn't
really observed it thought about it. Where does it even
like to be? I don't even know where it likes
to be low high. So then I had a little
surrender out of being uncomfortable and beat it and overwhelmed.
So then I started with manageable. Okay, step by step.
Where am I right now? I'm in front of a
(22:25):
green thing okay, and I have this app by naturalist.
Let's identify it. It's called viburnum. The catbird likes viburnum.
So I've just kind of located myself somewhere with something.
Keep walking, keep walking, open, focused, loose and feel the
myopia coming in. Loosen up, in and out, in and out,
(22:48):
in and out cat bird. That whole thing probably only
took fifteen minutes. I was exhausted by the end. Once
I had the catbird, I was like, I'm done. I
felt like I'd benched fifty pounds and I should get
a break. That de feats the whole thing. Why not
stay now with the cat bird? Seeing that I don't
(23:10):
know it at all.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
And it's fleeting too, which is something at least in
my limited experience with birds that I had to come
to terms with. Right you hear this call and for me,
I'm like ready to pull out some app and trying
to figure it out, and then it's just like it's gone.
You know that the good things are fleeting, but also
it seems like birding has taught you that the discomfort
the bad things are fleeting too. Right. You know, you
could be kind of restless and kind of not wanting
(23:32):
to do it as you were in Bryant Park, and
then there's a way to sort of soften too. It
teaches us like both the good and bad parts aren't
going to be there forever.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
That's right, and we need those experiences to see, oh
this past because it passed fifty other times.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
After the break, I'll talk more wilily about some of
the surprising benefits of bird watching, and I'll share where
I'm at in my own birding journey. The happiness lab
will be right back. And a society that rewards hustling
to the point of exhaustion, it can often feel like
(24:06):
any time not spent being productive is time wing. I
fall into this trap a lot. I know all the
research showing that setting boundaries when it comes to work
is crucial for your well being, but it can be
hard to do. Of course, it's important to make time
to rest and move your body, but it's also just
as essential to spend time doing things for no other
reason than the simple fact that you enjoy them. Psychologists
(24:29):
have a word for these kinds of activities atlic as
in not telic, not reward driven. Think things like listening
to music, doodling, or reading for pleasure. Atilic activities not
only help us manage stress, they can also bring a
sense of purpose and meaning, which are of course key
ingredients in improving our well being long term. After an
(24:49):
author Lily Taylor finds that bird watching is one of
the most beautifully atilic activities around.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
It is an activity that is just for the sake
of And so birding is also a help because I
do like lists, I like results. I don't have to
have a goal with birding. I can just enjoy it
for the sake of and I don't have to break
anything home to show for it.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
And I think the more we allow ourselves to not
be doing things for these extrinsic rewards, like we get
out of hustle culture, we're not ticking stuff off the list.
We can do stuff just to be right. We can
kind of just get rewarded from what's happening in the world.
Right It doesn't have to be, you know, on our
LinkedIn profile to kind of matter. But we can sometimes
get in the bode where that's what it feels like.
We just have to be working all the time.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
It's allowed.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
We are allowed it, and this is just your way
to have something that's enjoyable that's not like work. It's
just not another thing.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Are you at Yale?
Speaker 1 (25:41):
I am at ya? Yeah, right, because Rick Prum is there?
Rick Prum, Yeah, who's my colleague at Yell. He has
this wonderful book called The Evolution of Beauty. But where
can kind of just argue is that, like we can
understand so much about even human beauty from understanding birds
and how they evolve so many colors and shapes and
things like that.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
He helped me realize I can just love it for
the beauty. I don't have to have a reason. It
can just be beautiful.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Another benefit that I didn't expect to see in your book,
but makes a lot of sense once you get into it,
is that birds have been a path for you towards
social connection. Pretty Much every available study onhappy people suggest
that happy people are more social. And maybe this was
my stereotype, but I didn't really associate birders with being
very social. I kind of thought it was like a solo,
kind of by yourself in the woods activity. But you
(26:23):
told all these beautiful stories of how birds helped you connect.
I think my favorite one was a story of a
downey woodpecker that you ran into in Brooklyn. Can you
share that story with my listeners?
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Sure. I was looking up at something in Brooklyn and
someone stopped, which is what usually happens, and he asked
what I was looking at. I told her I was
looking at a downy woodpecker. She didn't know what a
woodpecker was. I told her what it was, and we
shared a moment together, and the woodpecker flew from a
(26:56):
tree right in front of us to this hanging basket
of suet, which is fat. Birds need fat in the winter.
So the brownstone we were in front of was also
connected to something because they were putting sue it out
for birds. So if you add some stuff to an
environment like food and shelter, not only will animals come,
(27:21):
but people will come to You had people who were
caring and sharing something a little moment and that was enough. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
I feel like, especially in a city where a lot
of people think like, well, nobody's paying attention to each other.
Everybody's just anonymous strangers on the street. That was like
your one moment to feel connected with a neighbor and
to teacher something new. That's right, And so it seems
like there are many many benefits of bird watching. If
someone is listening to this and it was like it's
for me, how should I get started? What's your advice
(27:53):
to a birding newbie.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Well, I would just say just step outside and see
what's around, see what's in your neighborhood, and just maybe
stay in one place for a few minutes and see
if anything happens. And if you hear something, maybe walk
towards it and just see if you can see it
and if you can follow it, just for a couple
of extra minutes. It's like when you're at the gym
(28:17):
and when you start to get tired and you're like,
I want to get off this thing. You just stay
on that extra minute see what happens. And then I
would say, just like look out your window a lot
and see who's there. It's like, get to know your neighbors.
Put a feeder out. If you start to like what's
happening and you start to like, oh my god, I
saw that bird twice now and it's like cool. Then
get the Merlin app. It's the Shazam for birds, and
(28:39):
it just shows you there's so much more happening than
you even realize. So that's always fun. It's like kind
of like Christmas presents or something all around.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Okay, I'm so glad you brought that up because I
have the Marlin app, but I don't use it in
nearly enough. And so I was going on a hike
just kind of for exercise, and inspired by your book,
I was like, oh yeah, I should take out the
Merlin app and see what I hear. And that caused
me to start listening, and so I was like, oh wait,
there is some bird chatter going on. What is it?
And I pulled out the app and it was like
in my brain, it was like a bird, but it
was like a few weeks ago, we're having this conversation.
(29:08):
In me was like the big migration, and it was
just like a ton of good stuff I pulled out.
I had great crested flycatcher, at ovenbird, puffed tip mouse,
even had worm eating warbler. But that was like magic.
It was like, oh my gosh, there's this like incredibly
rich story that's happening. I don't know, I just felt
(29:31):
less alone when I started to realize how many other
birds were there.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
You just summed up the whole thing. I mean that
to me is the metaphor. It's like, I seem to
think there's less around, less meaning less stuff than there is.
And what that Merlin app does is it confirms there's
a lot going on and a lot to look forward to,
and a lot to be open to, more than I
seemed to think. I seemed to underestimate life out there.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Yeah, and this is a way to just feel connected
to more than you honestly have a thought possible.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
And I love that. It's like an outside in. It's
fine using an outside thing to activate the hearing. It's
like the Merlin was like, I'll start it off.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
For you, because then I saw like ten minutes walking
arount and trying to find them and looking up in
the tree. It got me to use the senses that
I have to notice this interesting stuff, which is.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
What technology is fantastic. If you really start to love it,
get a pair of binoculars. And then also the siply
guide simply is a wonderful ornithologist who draws birds and
he knows behavior, so you can learn more about the
bird and how to identify them and how they behave.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
I love you can just see your joy on your
face when you talk about these, making me my face
is hurting from smiling so much. I hope hearing about
Lily's creative coping strategy has inspired you to get out
and experience the wonder of birds. But even if you're
not quite ready to grab binoculars or to start tracking
worm eating warblers, there's still a lot of great coping
strategies to take away from Lily's story. First off, if
(30:57):
you find yourself feeling exhausted and teetering on the edge
of burnout, that's a sign that you need to seek
out a quiet space to reconnect with yourself. Second, look
for moments of awe, especially in the natural world. That
can be the sound or site of an unexpected bird,
but it can also be other things of beauty too.
There's transcendence all around you if you just take some
(31:17):
time to look. Next up, practice mindfulness by intentionally noticing
what's new in your surroundings, and give yourself permission to
take a break from your goal oriented mindset and embrace
at like activities. And finally, if you need a good laugh,
fire up an old DVD copy of Say Anything and
watch Lily's hilariously deadpan performance of the awkward breakup anthem
(31:40):
Joe Lies. And that final suggestion is a nice transition
to the creative coping strategy we'll be exploring next week,
because when the Happiness Lab returns, we'll be learning about
the stress relieving power of music. Wilmina Cellis, who found
solace in his instrument both for dealing with everyday stresses
and for handling a particularly difficult time that threatened to
(32:01):
change his identity forever. My fatigue, It's like I'm wearing
a coat of heavy metal or armor underneath my skin.
All that next time on a Happiness Lab with me,
Doctor Laurie Santo's
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