December 8, 2025 • 48 mins
What stresses you out over the festive season? Happiness Lab listeners sent in their holiday woes so Dr Laurie and guest Rainn Wilson (The Office star and host of Soul Boom) could weigh in with some science-backed advice.
In the first part of our Holiday Survival Guide, Dr Laurie and Rainn discuss ways to defuse family arguments, why it's ok to feel sad at Christmas, and how to beat festive FOMO.
And find Nick Epley's "deep questions" conversation guide at drlauriesantos.com/deepquestions.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. We are now deep in the heart of December,
a very dark cold month in the US which we
often try to brighten up with some festive cheer. But
while we're supposed to be having fun this time of year,
in reality, the holidays can be tough. There's often family squabbles,
(00:38):
financial pressures, and even a heightened sense of loneliness. Here
at the Happiness Lab, we like to tackle holiday woes
head on, which is why we asked you to send
us all your holiday challenges, the worries you have about
dinner table strife and gift giving anxiety and how to
really create a happier holiday. And Wow, Happiness Lab listeners,
(00:58):
did you deliver. We got tons of questions about how
to stay joyful this season, So armed with your questions
and wearing my Santa hat, I jumped on a call
with this episode's special holiday helper and asked him to
introduce himself.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Laurie, I'm Rain Wilson.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
I think you know that, and I have a podcast
called Soul Boom and it's based on my book of
the same name. It's about why we need a spiritual revolution,
but it's not spirituality like you normally think about it.
It's about spiritual tools from mental health, wellness, personal transformation,
(01:35):
and also maybe using some of those tools to help
make the world a better place.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
If there's any time we need spiritual tools to feel
better and make the world a better place, I think
it's during the holiday season.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
That's good transition.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Though best known as a comedic actor, Rain takes his
spirituality pretty seriously. Rain was raised in the Bahai faith,
but he too has spent time observing the December holidays,
like celebrating Christmas with his grandparents, and it was fitting
for me to have Rain on the show to chat
about the holidays, because when I think of holiday cheer,
I can't help think of d Shrewt, the famous character
(02:10):
Rain played in the Office, and my favorite ever Office
holiday episode when Dwight dresses up in a weird medieval
costume and attempts to get his coworkers to celebrate the
Pennsylvania Dutch version of Christmas.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
I was kind of hoping that Bellschnickel would become a thing.
I was really hoping that would be a catalyst and
there would be Bellschnickel celebrations everywhere, impish or admirable. But
I'm afraid it hasn't really caught on, but we need
to make that happen.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Maybe this is the year Bellschnickel twenty twenty five. Hashtag
Bellsnickel twenty twenty five. We're gonna make it work.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
I love it. Let's bring it well.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
If that was only a holiday problem we've faced, it
would be very easy just bringing the Bellschnickel back. But unfortunately,
folks are struggling during the holiday season. And one of
the things that we did on the Happiness Lab was
that we solicited all our fans and listeners to send
us their holiday woes. And our goal today Rain is
to give folks advice so that they can have a
happier and more joyful, more spiritually excited holiday season.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
I love It's such a great service to folks. It's
a trying time, so we need all the kind of
tools and the joy and connection we can get.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Start with the level one holiday woes. We got a
lot of requests for help managing holiday expectations. One of
our listeners, Karishmo on Instagram, just wrote that straight up
her holiday woe was short be suite fomo fear missing out. Yeah,
and I think the special kind of fomo. We get
in the holidays where we look on social media and
we see everyone's lights and perfect trees and the big
(03:40):
presence under the tree, and we just feel like, why
is my holiday such a mess? How do we get
through that?
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Well?
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Thank you for asking a television sitcom actor an occasional
author about advice around how to get through that. I
don't have any specific advice, but I will say this,
and I'm sure you've talked about it a ton on
your show. Social media breeds fomo like nobody's business. Yes,
I'm a by some intents and purpose, this is a
(04:09):
fairly successful guy.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Like I have a book.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
And a podcast, and I do acting roles, and I
work in nonprofits and have my faith.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Community and blah blah blah.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
I'm not saying like successful, look at me, but I'm saying, like,
you know, I've got I've got things going on, a
lot going on. I look at Instagram and like what
some actors are doing or podcasters, and like they have
they're putting out content every other day and there. And
when they take a trip, they don't just take the trip,
they they do a fun, crazy exercise and they they're
(04:40):
always redecorating, and they're doing pottery, and they're the list
goes on and on and on, and I'm always like, God,
I should be doing that. I should be doing that.
Why am I not doing I really should be doing that.
Why am I not doing that? I could be doing that.
I really could be doing that. So I've taken social
media off my phone nice.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
I only look.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
At it very occasionally, like maybe once or twice a
week for a limited amount of time, and I kind
of prepare myself going in that, Hey, there's be all
these actors, performers, podcasters, writers, just bringing so much to
the table, and I'm choosing to do that in a
very limited amount of time. So I think of the
same thing works for the holidays. What is the holiday
(05:24):
in your heart?
Speaker 2 (05:25):
You know? Is it like we're just gonna get a
chicken from.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Ralph's and sit around the table and watch a football game,
or is it going to be more than that?
Speaker 2 (05:35):
And whatever it is, it's okay because it's just about connecting.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
I love this because I think you know what happens
to you when you go on to social media during
the holiday season, like could warm your Christmas heart and
just make you filled with the holiday spirit, or it
could make you snarky and judgy and kind of sad
about your own life. And if it's the latter, then
you have a choice. You could just not hop on
Facebook and not hop on Instagram during the holiday season.
(05:59):
You could just kind of make sure you have in
real life connection time and just avoid it. So I
think this is a great advice. Monitor the FOMO and
the sadness and the social comparison, and if it's feeling crappy, remember,
especially on social media, you can step away.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
My therapist Bruce talks a lot about vigilance and preparedness
so we're not blindsided by people and situations and then
then we're not victimized by them. So if you're gonna
go onto Instagram, just be prepared and be vigilant that
(06:33):
it's going to probably in some ways inspire you.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
It's going to entertain you.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
You're gonna laugh, you're gonna see some funny videos, you're
gonna see some friends and check in. There's gonna be
some great, you know, oxytocin and dopamine releases that are
very positive, and then there's.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Also going to be some negative impact.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
So it's super important to not be a passive victim
and just click open socials, but to be vigilant and prepared,
just like you have to be vigilant and prepared, I
suppose when you come and meet your family for the holidays.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
And this is your therapist advice, but it's also ancient advice.
One of my favorite stoic philosophers, Epictitis, thousands of years ago,
had this little passage where he said, when you go
to the baths, remember what happens at the bats, And
the bats were like the thing people would like, go
to the bats, and that is like at the bats,
you know, there's warm water and it's great, but people
are going to jostle you. People are going to annoy you.
(07:23):
And I think like that idea of remember what happens
when you go to the bats is something that I
bring back over and over again in the holiday season,
especially during holiday travel. I have to fly to my
in laws in Iowa, who I love and are great,
But that takes me through Chicago's O'Hare airport, which is
not great. It's like it's like it's like what epics
he just meant by the bats before he knew about Yeah,
(07:44):
like air travel and these kinds of things.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
It's like, it's like he said, remember what happens at
O'Hare before going to O'Hare.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Yeah, some translations of the Latin I think do call
it O'Hair. Okay, but yeah, but we got to remember,
we got to be vigilant. And another thing we need
to be vigilant for something else that came up a
bunch with our listeners, which is this idea of perfectionism.
Everybody wants a holiday to be Christmas card perfect, but
pretty much nobody's holiday is Christmas heart perfect. How do
(08:12):
you let the holidays just be and fight that perfectionism?
How do you do that in your own life?
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Rain So, I grew up a member of the Bahai faith,
so Christmas was kind of a part time endeavor for
us and our extended family. We definitely celebrated Christmas more
as a cultural holiday. That was my grandparents had a
tree and there would be some gifts and stuff like that.
So I never kind of grew up with that kind
of pressure. But I know that there are people and
I've met them, and I have some family members that
(08:39):
start preparing six or nine months out.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
They go to those Christmas stores in the summer oh yeah,
you know yep.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
And for some folks it's one of their passions, you know,
decorating and.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Pulling off an amazing Christmas.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
But I just think that, you know, this sounds so hokey,
and maybe you can help me steer this out of
the gutter. But it sounds so hokey. But like, it's
about the Christmas spirit, right, if you're a Christian, it's
Jesus was born, the Prince of Peace is here. It's
a time of love, a connection, gift giving, coming in
(09:15):
from the cold, bringing a tree in from outside in
you know, the in the more Germanic tradition. But it's
it's about connection and gratitude and thanks and it's not
about stringing eighty seven popcorn strength and having the lights
perfect and having those photos up on Instagram and sharing
(09:37):
them in your Christmas card. And I would say, Laurie,
what is that? What is that human impulse toward beyond
perfectionism to make something better than it has to be?
Oh yeah, maybe that is perfectionist.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
So it's kind of like a not enough, not enough.
I'm not enough. My house isn't enough, the trees not enough,
the decorations are not enough. Yeah, I get I'm ashamed
to admit this, but I get this a lot, not
necessarily so much about the winter holidays, but about other
of situations in holidays. Sometimes I feel like every endeavor
that I'm supposed to be doing is like the middle
(10:14):
school science fair, and I'm supposed to get, you know,
the first prize in the middle school science fair. So
it can't just be like a regular tree. It has
to be like sure, the perfect tree and over the top.
And then it stops being fun. And I'm snarky with
my husband and I'm you know, wristling like in work
meetings because I'm so mad that the tree didn't come
out right, and it's like, wait, what am I doing?
Speaker 3 (10:32):
And I think too, I've been looking a lot at
my own workoholism. And Arthur Brooks just had a column
on workoholism and his weekly column for the Atlantic and
has so many great things in there, but one was,
you know, there's something wonderful about humans getting self esteem
(10:54):
from doing good work.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
But if we get all of our esteem.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
From impressing others, you know, putting in an obsessive amounts
of hours, that there's something really unhealthy.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
There's there's something really imbalanced.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
I have to look out for my own kind of
therapeutic practice of like I am enough. I'm enough just
as I am. Like you said, you can live in
a middle class home that isn't super decorated, it's not
a Arthur Stewart home, and that your home is enough,
your food is enough, You are enough as opposed to
(11:29):
like always am having to prove myself by doing more.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Yeah, and you said the word that I think we
all need to pay attention to, which is balance.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Right.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
It's fine to like care about your house looking nice,
but when that gets out of balance and now you're
in judge, snirky, pissy, sad mode, Like that's when something's
gone too far. So vigilance again, watch for that moment
of kind of imbalance and then try to rectify it all. Right, Now,
(12:05):
we have a longer holiday woe that we got from Beth,
And I think longer holiday was we got a lot
of because people have a lot of emotions when it
comes to.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
The holiday season.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
But this is about how we can manage holiday expectations
about hospitality during the holiday season. And so here's my
summary of Beth's email. So, Beth's family hosts this big
holiday event every year, and when Beth was home, she
ran into a high school friend who she found out
had had some losses in the year. High school friends
(12:35):
didn't have anybody to go to the holidays with, So
Beth emails her mom and says, Hey, you know, my friend,
she doesn't everywhere to go. Would it be cool if
I bring her. I'm going to assume it's cool. Let
me know if it's not. But it'd be so nice
to have somewhere, you know, let this person have a
happier holiday when she was going to be so lonely.
But then radio silence. Beth, here's nothing, and so she's like, uh,
(12:55):
this doesn't sound good. So a week before the event,
Beth email's back and says like, hey, you didn't write
back about my friend coming. I hope it's still cool.
Still radio silence. But Beth's like, you know, the holidays,
you know, Christmas hospitality or whatever it is. So Beth
invites the friend, and the mom is stone cold, silent,
very mean to Beth, and in fact so mean that
(13:18):
she puts Beth at the friend at a separate table
like the kid's table in the other room from the
holiday dinner whe everybody's eating well, which Beth lovingly referred
to as the punishment table. It makes me feel like,
you know, whatever problems my family, that didn't shun me
to a punishment table, at least in recent memories. So
that's good. But I think it shows off what we
(13:38):
often kind of go through, which is like, this is
supposed to be a season of hosting and the holiday spirit,
but we can get so tied to what we think
the meal is going to be and who's going to
be at the meal that we sometimes wind up not
being as kind as we should be. So any ideas
about how we can put some checks on that, like
fight back against this idea of we can be so
(13:59):
rigid that the holiday has to be this way that
we wind up hurting the people we care about.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Well, I got to do a little deer abby on
the letter. We got a deer abby this please?
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (14:07):
All right?
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Well, first of all, I always say to folks and
my own son, my wife, people I deal with when
I was had this company sold pancake. So many crossed
wires by texting and emailing, where it's like pick up
the phone, pick up the phone, pick up the phone,
(14:31):
hear someone's voice, run it by them voice to voice.
It's it's really hard, especially on a chain, and then
people don't want to respond because they you know, it's
not a great way to communicate. Also, some people have
very different opinions about Christmas. They're like, I want Christmas
with the family. This is my chance to just see
I don't want Bobby bringing his girlfriend, and Eddie bringing
(14:52):
his high school friend and Dominic bringing his sick friend.
Like I just want the family together. Some people feel
very strongly about that. I know my friend Kevin once
brought a girlfriend that he had only been dating for
like six months, and his family was like outraged, like
if it's a real girlfriend, And it's like, if it's
this is headed towards engagement or something great, but don't
(15:14):
just bring who you're currently seeing over. That's just doesn't
seem right. But I'm guessing the families from the Midwest,
and there's a lot of passive aggressive stuff going on here,
and the idea that the mom would be steing on
this for weeks or months and then just treat someone
like that in person is incredibly dysfunctional and shows like
(15:36):
they've got some there's conflict avoidance going on and passive
aggression going on. So I feel on all sides, but
I think some of this could have been avoided with
better communication.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
And one of the things we need to communicate about
is exactly what you're saying, right, which is like our values?
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Right.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
It might be that for Beth, like the Christmas season
is all about, you know, being kind to people in
need or kind of you know, Christmas hospitality. Who cares
what it might be that for Beth's mom, it's really
about exactly what you're saying. It's family. Like family, family,
that is value that we want to engage with in
the season, and if you bring some rando, it's going
to interrupt our family time in that matters. But you
can't know what other people's values are unless you first communicate.
(16:17):
But then second you are really honest and ask questions
and say, you know, how do you feel about this,
what does this mean to you?
Speaker 2 (16:23):
And so on.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
We often just don't do that second step of trying
to see how it would feel to someone, and that
matters a.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Lot, and increasing sensitivity and compassion to everyone during the
holidays to understand that, you know, Uncle Ronnie may just
want to watch the football game, you know, and Aunt
Sally really wants to connect with this side of the
family and you know, someone else it's really about Jesus
and church and going to church first thing in the morning,
(16:48):
and it's much more of a religious thing. Some people
expect a lot of presents, Like doesn't mean you have
to kowtow to their every need, but get in reality
with your family about is what is the holidays for us?
Speaker 2 (17:01):
And maybe that's a great source of conversation.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Is kind of like on Boxing days, sit around like, hey, everyone,
let's get together, let's talk about what the holidays mean
for us? And like next year, like what is it
that we want to do? I mean, what do we
love about it? What do we think we could change?
What if we didn't exchange gifts? Because it's a lot
of pressure and we just all put in money towards
this charitable event that we feel strongly about, our cause
(17:26):
that we feel strongly about, you know. But to encourage
that kind of group conversation to kind of move it forward.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Well, this is a nice transition because the next set
of holiday woes that we're going to tackle are navigating
family dynamics. We've already started off hat of the conversation,
but we have some specific ones that I think might
need the Dear rain advice, And so here's one from
cal quote. The biggest challenge for me going home for
family holidays was not only listening to a close relative
(17:56):
boast about all the material possessions and fabulous job titles
they had, but also watching my parents not an admiration
and approval whilst looking down on me for living in
a two bedroom apartment and making loaded comments about my
old car end quote, if only.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
I was more successful end quote.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Families bring up a lot of old school family expectations
that often go and said, because of this conversation issue,
how do we navigate that.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
I don't know you're going to have to take this one,
but I do. I hear about this a lot. Someone
is like, so you're still single, like you know, the
expectation that you're going to be in a relationship, or
did you get that raise you were supposed to get
last year, or you're still at the same dead end job.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Like There's can be some implications there.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
And one thing I will say is that I think
this is the grumpy old man in me, But I
feel like people are less good at conversation than they
used to be. And maybe it's because we spend so
much time looking at our phones.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
We're so out of practice, we're so out of practice.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
Yeah, because I think that a lot of times people
are like they just ask the same old questions.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
So, how how have you been good?
Speaker 3 (19:07):
How's the health, nice weather, we're take any vacations? How's
your job, how's your kid? How's your mom doing? How
about those bears? How is ohare airport? And then you're done,
And then they're kind of like that's it. And if
you try and go deeper, people are not very good
(19:29):
at listening. Yeah, yeah, I don't This doesn't answer the
question at all, but I think it's something that all
of us can just be working on is getting Because
to me, great conversation comes.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Out of curiosity.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
Yeah, Like if I meet someone interact with them, I'm
deeply curious, like who are they, what makes them tick?
What do they think about things? How did they get
to where they are? And maybe that.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Helps make me a podcast host or you as well.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
But I think that's the key. We all need to
become podcast hosts. Around the family dinner table, right, we
all need to bring in a little more curiosity, And
this is a spot where I think the research helps
us a lot. My colleague Nick Epley, who's this professor
at the University of Chicago studies calls undersociality, this idea
that we're not as social as we could be and
we don't understand the benefits of sociality and the way
(20:15):
that we should. And he has this technique that he
calls deep conversation, which is avoid the shallow stuff. Know,
how is the weather, how is O'Hare? You ask, what's
one thing that you're really grateful for this year? Oh?
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Wow, that's great.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Yeah, what's one thing about your work that really surprises you?
You know, what's the last time you cried? Right, which
is actually one of the items on his survey. And
what people predict is like, awful, this is going to
be like way too overshare. But what happens is people
really enjoy it. Even when they're talking about stuff that
might be tough to talk about, they wind up feeling
closer afterwards. So I think if your family conversations are
(20:51):
veering into this stuff, that's either activating all this old
school I'm not good enough, or you feel like you're
veering into like that career conversation you've had forty times
and you don't want to go through it again. Just
switch gears and get curious, to get a little deeper.
I think it can help a lot.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
What about this, What about heading it off at the past,
like gather everyone to get either you arrive, Hey, everyone together.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
I got a couple announcements.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Yes I'm still working at blah blah blah, and no
I didn't get the rays, and yeah my car sucks.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
I'm gonna I'm looking to get a new one next year.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
And I've only had a couple of dates with this Susie,
but I'm still single.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
And there you have it.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
You can you can make like a button and so
you don't have to get into it, like a little
button that says still at the dead end, job still
with Susie?
Speaker 3 (21:38):
Yes you still for conversation cards? Hand out, hand out
the cards. Here's some other questions to ask me on
the flip it over. And then it's like, when's the
last time you cried?
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Look lock.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
It sounds stupid, but I think props can be incredibly helpful,
and in fact, Nick will well we'll share some of
these with the episode. But Nick has a set of
things you can download, so literally print them out and
stick them on the table so that when the conversation
dies down, if it's just on the table, someone will
pick it up and now you're talking about when the
last time you cried was, and you'll feel better.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
I would love to get those resources.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
I don't think you need them, Ran, I feel like
you're pretty good at conversation being a natural podcast host.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
No, but I love like even that idea of like
when's the last time you cry? Because that's going to
be a portal to so many stories, you know, and
to get to know someone.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
It's it's such a simple question, but it's tugging on
the thread that unravels the sweater, you know.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Yeah, And I think if nothing else, our time with
the people we love should be there to get their stories. Again,
not to get morbid, but many of us have family
members that are getting up there. You know, we might
not have time to extract those stories. It feels like
we have forever, but in practice, you know, unless we
ask these deeper questions, these curious questions, we might ever
(22:50):
get there. So we'll give you some tools to help
out with that. You can find a version of these
conversation tips from Nick Epley on my website at doctor
Lauri Santos dot com slash deep Questions. That's d r
Lauri Santos dot com slash deep questions. Why not give
them a try and boost your social connection this holiday season.
It's time for a quick break, but Rain and I
(23:11):
will be back soon with more holiday tips when the
Happiness Lab returns in a moment. Okay, not just family
drama people are worried about. It's also the drama that
we experience in the world. Politics is getting so deep.
(23:32):
I'm gonna take the Santa hat off, both because it's
hot and also to signal we're going to the hard
stuff right now. Lots of families are worried about the
fact that their holidays are spent with people who have
political beliefs that might not align with their own political beliefs.
And we heard from many many listeners who wanted some
help with this.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
So here's just one.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Ki Kim notes on Instagram. I'm married to a wonderful
husband of twenty three years. He was raised in a
conservative family and I was raised in a liberal one.
It is a nightmare hearing both sides argue about politics.
Especially because both of us were raised in families so
focused on politics that we hate politics. It is a
problem every year. Please give us some advice. Do your
(24:14):
ragin you want to take this one?
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Yeah, I mean it's really simple. I mean you don't
have to engage number one. Number two you can say hey,
I choose not to engage as a proactive response.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
And number three you could.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Kind of whether it's by email beforehand or gathering everyone
run around at the get go and just say, listen, guys,
we live in such politically divisive times.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Can we make an agreement about what we're going to
do about this?
Speaker 3 (24:44):
I mean, half of us voted for Trump, half of
us didn't, Half of us feel like this about immigration,
half of us don't like We all know that we're
not going to solve anything by getting into it. We
may actually increase division. Can we focus on what unites us?
What are those precious points of unity that we can
focus our conversation on, Because.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
I think that that's always the way to go.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
And studies show that when you find stuff that you're
united on, it can overcome, you know, some of the
yucky political differences. There's some work, for example, that realizing like, hey,
we both love the same sports team, Like we are
huge Patriots fans that can overcome a little bit of
the divisiveness when it comes to politics.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
You know.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
So if I'm if I'm a liberal and I know
somebody else is a Patriots fan just like me, then
it's okay that they voted for Trump because we still
have this one thing that unites us. And so think
about the uniting things and talk about those in detail.
But if you want to get into politics, I think
this is a spot where the research shows a path forward,
which is, don't talk about the like the facts of
(25:50):
the matter, talk about the lived experience and the feelings.
There's some of this lovely work that's looking at the
phenomena of perspective, getting asking for people's lived experiences. It's
kind of similar to these deep questions, but you ask
you know, when was the time that you felt like,
you know, you were really struggling. You know, Oh, I see,
(26:10):
like that's from your perspective, you know, when I think
of I don't know, people who are going through a
tough time because of finances, you know, that's what they're
going through and so on. But it's another way that
you can talk about lived experiences and values and see
those things, and you don't have to talk about who
you've voted for, but you can get into the thick
of it, which you can kind of give you some
insight into, you know, where somebody might be coming from,
(26:31):
if they think a little bit differently than you. You
don't have to agree with them. But by asking questions
and trying to learn more, you can often get a
little bit of compassion.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Sometimes, Yeah, I think, And there's that Curiosity podcast thing again,
asking questions.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
No one likes to be lectured too.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
No one likes to have facts that they're unsure of
kind of spouted at them. And I love that idea
about talking about lived experience. And you know, like climate
change is something that's very important to me, and you know,
renewable resources, regenerative agriculture, you know, climate solutions, climate communications.
(27:11):
But I wouldn't go to a family gathering and start
talking about CO two.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Bring a power point and walk through, you know, point
by point, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
And lecture about oh, you're driving that hummer and here's
the output.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
And if you drove a Kia, you know.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
You could do like I'm not gonna do any of that,
but I might talk about how hard it was to
have had evacuated four different wildfires in the last six
years in three different houses, which I did undergo and undertook.
I can talk about how I'm afraid that the you know,
(27:49):
the Pacific Northwest woods that I loved growing up in
won't be there for my son or his kids, and
how can we preserve nature?
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Talk about a shared love of nature. You know, what was.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
It like growing up on that pond or when you
would go fishing each summer?
Speaker 2 (28:06):
What was that like?
Speaker 3 (28:07):
Because both left and right do want to preserve nature,
conserve nature, cherish nature, and that's a point of commonality.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Yeah, and I think we forget that we wind up
having way more of these points of commonality than we think.
This is another bias of the mind that I think
just gets even more extreme during the holiday season, which
is that if you ask, most people agree on most things,
Like most people care about the environment and don't want it,
don't want the earth to go away. Most people care about,
(28:40):
you know, free and fair elections. Most people care that
people are being respected no matter what their identity is.
Like if you look at broad strokes, most of us
agree on most of the issues. The nuance is, like
you know, in the little things about how we want
to execute those things. But if you find ways to
stick to people's broader values, and you do that with
curiosity and asking questions, getting perspective rather than giving your
(29:03):
own perspective, you usually wind up and safer territory.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Well said, well done. All right.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Here's another one. This is one I can totally relate to.
It's from an email from Rachel. She says, my mom
and my partner's mom feel very attached to the holidays
and have never been okay with quote sharing the holiday
from year to year. This causes us to split time
and run around like crazy seeing everyone limiting the actual
fund that can be had. I hear there's from so
(29:32):
many families who have young kids. Where are the kids
going to go? You know for the big holiday moments
like if you celebrate Christmas Christmas morning? Are the kids
going to be at my in laws? Or are they
going to be at my partner's in laws? And families
feel like they get left out if they don't get chosen.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
Yeah, there's also a lot more split families, divorced families.
I know people I know one guy every year, friend
of mine. You know, his ex wife hosts the Thanksgiving
dinner and he does the day after Thanksgiving barbecue, and
he's always a little surly about it.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
It's like, why do I have to get the day after?
Yeh can't? Why can't we alternate? You know? But that's
just how it is.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
And again, this is adjusting to the holidays. And you know,
one way to maybe approach this, Laurie, and I'm wondering
your thoughts on this is in soul Boom we talk
a lot about spiritual paths and solutions towards mental health
and making the world a better place, and time and
(30:43):
time again, this concept of service comes up. And when
we are in a service mode, we actually increase our
own happiness. We think that what's going to make us
happier is getting what we want and setting things up
so that we get what we want. But oftentimes by
turning that around where we can walk into a circumstance
(31:04):
and say, how can I be of service here? You know,
how can I be of service to my in laws
and to my mom to give her, you know, the
Christmas that she wants And you don't want to, of course,
just sacrifice your needs and suffer, that's not what I'm
talking about, and not speak up for what's important to you.
(31:24):
And you know, you have to honor your voice. But
like for my friend with the barbecue, it's shifting his
mentality where it's like, this.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Is what the kids, What do the kids want? This
is what they like?
Speaker 3 (31:37):
Let maybe of service to my family, I'm going to
sacrifice a Thanksgiving dinner for the well being of my
kids from this divorce and then also provide them with
this barbecue. And so it's shifting into a service mindset.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
What do you think I love it.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
I mean, the research shows that this is exactly the
way to feel better. You mentioned like, well, you don't
want to sacrifice too much, but I think what you
see from the studies is like it's not a sacrifice
at all. If you can get into that service mindset,
then you get something out of the act of doing
something kind for others. And I think this might be
the path out of it. You know, if you're feeling
a little rigid about your family coming at a certain
(32:17):
time and you really thought, like what would be a gift,
you know, to your young kids who are traveling with
a toddler, Maybe throw a hair airport and have to
frantically go from one house to another. You might say, hey,
let's think about if we could do this a different time.
We'll do it a week out, We'll do it the
week after, you know, the holidays, when everything's on sale,
can get the decorations for cheaper at all, you know,
the cheap hot chocolate and so on. Like just that act.
(32:40):
I could imagine that Rachel, who was going through this,
would say, oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. Right,
But it's this act of remembering that the gifts we
can give don't have to be gifts. They can really
be our kindness and our care during these tough times.
They can also be asking other people for help. So oddly,
some of the studies show that another way we can
(33:00):
be of service is to ask for the things we need,
especially if it's relatively easy for the person we're asking
to give it.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Do you have like an example of that how to?
How does that work? Well?
Speaker 1 (33:10):
We do, in fact, from a happier story from Maria.
Do you see how good I am at the podcast transitions?
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Oh? Wow, the transitions are so good, so much better
than my podcast.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
All right, well, well here's for Maria, which I like
ending this section on dealing with family dynamics with this
particular example because it's kind of a positive. Well, it
starts out bad, but it winds up being positive. So
Maria tells us a story about her worst Christmas where
she has a fight with her husband a few days
before Christmas. Doesn't remember what the fight is about, but
during the fight, she asked the husband do you love
me anymore? And he starts crying and he says he
(33:42):
doesn't know. Basically, fast forward, you know, twenty four hours
or so, it's the end of their entire relationship, the
end of their marriage. But Maria is about to go
home to visit her mom over Christmas. Mom loves Christmas,
and she's a little bit worried that she's going to
ruin her mom's Christmas by being like, my marriage just ended,
and is tempted to pretend this isn't happening, to hold
(34:03):
it in. But here's the part that I think the
story gets happier. But she notes, then I realize, my mom,
who's over sick years old, she's had many wonderful Christmases
in her life. One bad Christmas is not going to
ruin that for her. And in fact, she would appreciate
it much more if I reached out to her and
asked for help. She would be angry if she heard
later on that I'd suffered alone. So she goes home,
(34:23):
she tells her mom. She calls her, and of course
the mom is super happy, because when does a mom
get to give that kind of present to her daughter
over Christmas of supporting her through something that's really terrible.
Other members of the family find out. Maria's worried what
they're going to say, But of course most people are
incredibly compassionate, incredibly interested in helping, and it winds up
(34:44):
being like a warmer, closer feeling Christmas than Maria had
had before, despite I mean, obviously the sadness of what
she went through. She ends the story with I hope
this inspires others to reach out for help too, and
not to suffer alone. The helper will feel needed, and
I'm sure it will increase their happiness and sense of
purpose too.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
Wow and fun fact, you know that's how Maria and
I met. And she's right here, Maria. He say hi
to LORI say she took your letter here, come here.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
No, But it makes exactly your point, right This idea
of service. We forget that if we can shift into
a service mindset, we feel better. But also if we
can make it easy for others to shift into a
service mindset, if we can give them the gift of
helping us, I think that's huge. And this gets back
to some of the perfectionism we were talking about before.
I think a lot of the people that go into
like perfectionist holiday mode are often bad at asking for
(35:36):
and receiving help with things. We've all had the family
the family martyr who does the turkey and does all
the stuff, and you're like, oh, can I set the table,
and like, no, no, no, I'm going to do it myself.
Like think back and realize that you can help others
by letting them help you a little bit too.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
You know.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
A lot of this too goes back to what we
were saying at the very beginning, and I think it's
kind of preparedness and vigilance, and it's proactive communication. I
imagine I don't know what the circumstances were, but I
imagine her sharing with her family, Hey, I'm going through
this really hard time.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
It's a holiday. I could use your support, I could
use a safe space.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
I could use a space to grieve and to love
and to just be surrounded by people that love me.
That would be really important to me. And if you
hear that, you're like, oh yeah, if yeah, I'm in,
I'm all in. Of course, how can I yes, be
a part of that. But part of that is on
the marias to communicate it well. And this is oftentimes
(36:36):
what I find with folks is just living in a
little bit more passive victim state as opposed to like
a being a protagonist of their life, whether it's showing
up to be of service or showing up to ask
for your needs to be met.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
Yeah, and I think we can apply this to so
many of the things we talked about. You know, let's
get back to politics. That really tricky one for so
many individuals. I think you can just start with you know,
I've been feeling really burned out, have a tough year.
What I would really love is just for all of
us to just you know, put that to the side
this year, Right, that feels really different. Then I disagree
with your politics, Dad, and so we're not going to
talk about it, but like, what I really want is
(37:13):
just some closeness. Can we just talk about old times
and you know it just there's ways to ask for
help that make it easy for folks to grant you
what you need and then everybody's happy.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
Nice. I love it all. Right.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
Now we're jumping to the third holiday woe that we
heard about a lot kind of maybe built up a
little bit from Maria's story. A lot of us are
going through sometimes of grief and loss and loneliness during
the holidays. Here's an email from Mindy. One thing I
struggle with at the holidays is anticipating the loss I feel.
Both of my maternal grandparents died in early December. My
(37:47):
father died a month before Christmas, and my mother is
currently dying from als and will be gone before the holidays.
What are the holidays without our grandparents and parents? This
is something I know you talk a lot about on
soul boom right thinking about spirituality, and one of the
things we use our spiritual experiences for is to navigate
(38:07):
grief and loss, especially during these like emotionally fraught times.
So any ideas about how to get through this, well.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
That's a great question and a really great topic.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
And I love that you're covering this because I don't
think that this has covered a lot in podcasts or
conversations about happiness.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
Yes, it's like, how.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
How do we navigate happiness and well being when we're
really dealing with grief, loss and death. And you're absolutely right,
like the holidays can bring up people that we lost
during the year. It can be people that we lost
that we miss that used to be there and are
no longer there, are sick or what have you. And
(38:50):
you know, contemporary American culture, we don't talk a lot
about this stuff. You know, we tend to kind of like, oh,
I don't want to bum everyone out, so we're not
going to talk about what we're grieving or what have you.
I'm I'm a little bit of an overshare kind of person.
Maybe it's also being from California, but chronic oversharing, but
(39:13):
you know, perhaps it's carving out some.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
Time to honor the grief.
Speaker 3 (39:18):
It's almost like the oscars in memoriam, like, Okay, we're
going to take four minutes now to show the slide
show of the people that died this last year, just
to kind of like have a somber note and honor that.
And I think that's great, but maybe maybe on a
family level and this would I think be hard for
a lot of people to initiate. It's kind of like,
(39:39):
can we come together and say a prayer for Aunt
Judy who's sick or Uncle Bob who passed away last year?
Can everyone can we go around the circle and say,
you know who we miss or how we might be
grieving or are going through. Because when you give it
the space and honor it, then you can celebrate and
it's not weighing on you like a wet blanket. You know,
(40:01):
you can just take five, ten, fifteen minutes to do that,
and then you can have days of joy because you've
taken the time to you know, to recognize what's real.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
I think this is so critical. I mean, one of
the things we know about negative emotions is that like
negative emotions, when you have to feel them, they don't
last as long as we think, right. I mean, obviously
the grief of losing a loved one lasts a lot,
but those moments when it comes up, it's not gonna
last forever. The problem is that we kind of suppress
those emotions down. We say, nope, this holiday season, we can't,
(40:34):
you know, think about Grandpa. We have to pretend that
everybody's perfect. But when we allow time to just sit
there and like radically accept our emotions, the studies show
that those emotions wind up passing a little bit better.
Like when you sit down to feel the grief, you're
going to feel it, and if you allow yourself to
do that, you'll give yourself some space. But then, just
as you said, it's like, Okay, now I can make
(40:56):
space for the joy because I'm not using part of
my frontal lobe to hold down the grief that I'm
feeling about Grandpa for the whole Christmas season. I gave
myself some space to experience that, and I think that's
so important. Happy holidays doesn't have to mean that we're
happy all the time at every moment. It's like, you know,
a ten out of ten on joy for every second.
Like there's a lot of nostalgia there, there's a lot
(41:19):
of past coming up, there's a lot of dealing with
tough things. We need to make space for all the
emotions that come through it, and that lets those emotions
kind of take their course and go on their merry way.
Speaker 3 (41:29):
That's so well said. I met this old twelve step
guy once and he said, the only way out is through,
meaning like, the only way to be relieved of with
a burden of whatever grief you're feeling is to go
through it. And like you say, it can be really scary,
but it's oftentimes briefer and easier than we think it's going.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
To be and more socially shared. Right you bring it up,
and it's like, even if someone's not grieving the exact
person you're grieving, and if their loss is not the same,
I bet that pretty much everyone you interact with during
the holiday season is going through something that's making them sad,
some loss, something that feels different than they'd like it
to be, and so opening up space for other people
to share that stuff can be really important for our
(42:13):
happiness too. That's great, But that connection leads me to
the next thing that people go through, which is loneliness.
During the holiday season, all our social media feeds are
filled with people caroling and hanging out and having dinner together,
but there's a lot of folks who are feeling lonely,
either because they've had a recent loss or just because
they're alone. We had one anonymous commentator on YouTube saying
(42:34):
that his holiday woe is quote being lonely and just
not having somebody to spend the holiday moments with, sort
of this feeling of watching others have and experience happy
moments and feeling like that might never happen to me.
I think during holidays it can feel like everybody is
happy and being social and you're not. Sometimes, even if
you're in a big group of family or a big
(42:55):
group of people, we can experience the deepest loneliness there. So,
what are some strategies for feeling a little bit more
connected during the holiday season, especially if you're kind of
feeling a little lonely.
Speaker 3 (43:05):
Well, my first experience of this had to do in
an episode of Happy Days where Arthur Fonzarelli, who's so cool,
you know, and beloved by everyone and can get any
girl he wants, and he's got his motorcycle and his
pinball machine and his garage and stuff like that, and
they Richie Cunningham realizes.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
He's spending Christmas alone.
Speaker 3 (43:28):
And he's cooking a can of soup, and so they
invite the Fonds over to the Cunninghams.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
And all is saved.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
But in all seriousness, you know, I'm sure you've spoken
about this a ton. We're in this loneliness epidemic. Yes,
and especially with young people. A lot of times people
are feeling more and more not just isolated lonely, but
lonely while in groups of other people, lonely while at work,
(43:59):
lonely while at school.
Speaker 1 (44:01):
And I think this happens in families a lot, especially
if you're feeling disconnected, you're sitting around the dinner table,
feeling like I don't belong, I don't can to these people.
Speaker 3 (44:10):
Yeah, so you know, I just want to honor that
this is a very real thing.
Speaker 2 (44:15):
You know.
Speaker 3 (44:15):
I think the work on loneliness has to be done
way before it's Christmas time, you know. So I think it's, uh,
that's a good time for some therapy. It's you know,
going on meetup.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
It's it's.
Speaker 3 (44:29):
Little by little, bit by bit exerting yourself into areas
where you might feel a little bit of discomfort. Join
a bowling league or a kickball league, or a Dungeons
and Dragons game, join a park cleanup.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
There's this.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
Nonprofit in our area called Food Forward where they get
and they pick stuff from the orchards around to give
out a food kitchens.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
And the camaraderie is amazing.
Speaker 3 (44:58):
They come over and they pick your extravocados and lemons
and stuff like that, and and you know it's going
to good and they're having such a good time doing it.
You know, finding places to volunteer, and maybe volunteering around
the holidays is always a good idea too, a soup
kitchen or something like that. These all sound kind of obvious.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
I don't know, but I think they have.
Speaker 1 (45:18):
I think you are offering something important, right. You're getting
back to what you talked about before, which is this
idea of service. And just one thing we know about
the psychology of loneliness is that a really good cure
for loneliness is reaching out to other people. It's like
thinking of your own service is trying to make other
people less lonely or make other people happy in other ways.
And so I think you're getting at it. If you're
(45:39):
feeling lonely in the holiday season, reach out to a
person that you think might be a need or that
you think might be lonely, and just check in, not
for the goal of trying to feel less lonely yourself,
but just to say I'm solving the loneliest crisis around me.
And studies show that it'll make you feel a little
boost of belonging, a little boost of social connection, and
then you create these ripple effects that wind up making
(46:01):
everybody feel a little bit happier.
Speaker 3 (46:04):
But isn't part of the problem texting, because yes, I
make a lot of calls and I have like I
have a couple buddies I just talked to several times
a week, and we just like catch up on movies.
How's it going, what's going on? And it's really old fashioned.
It's boo boo boo boo boop, Hey, how's it going?
Speaker 2 (46:25):
Like?
Speaker 3 (46:26):
And they used to say, oh, phone is so disconnecting.
It's being in person, and obviously being in person, but
you know, can we.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
Get a coffee? Calling?
Speaker 3 (46:35):
Just calling to I just called to say I love you.
I'm just calling to check in on you. Because we
can feel connected. It's a fake kind of connection when
we text someone say how's it going, Hey, how are
you good?
Speaker 2 (46:48):
All right?
Speaker 3 (46:48):
You cool?
Speaker 2 (46:49):
All right later? It's not soul satisfying, right.
Speaker 3 (46:54):
And social media is the same way, Like you can
post a picture of your cat and get thirty seven
hearts on it and feel like you have thirty seven friends,
but it's not a real connection around your cat.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
Yeah, the science shows best connection, most newutritious, psychologically nutritious
connection is at least in real time. You know, so
the phone you're picking up and you say, hey, how's
it going? You say, oh Hi, it's not like a
text like voop how's it going? And then voop back.
But all that said, you know, if all you got
is time to text, do that rather than nothing.
Speaker 3 (47:24):
Right.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
But yeah, calling on the phone, or if you want
to get a big technological advancement, you can use these
other video tools. We have Skype, FaceTime. If you don't
have a landline, like Rain, feel free to use your
iPhone to someone else the video like the little camera feature.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
I send facts.
Speaker 3 (47:42):
I still send facts.
Speaker 1 (47:43):
One of the best forms of social connection during the
holiday season. Did you get my holiday facts?
Speaker 2 (47:48):
Facts? You can't get my facts.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
I had such a blast hanging out with Rain Wilson.
Thanks so much to every listener who sent in a
holiday woe for us to chew on. Unfortunately, there were
lots of your tough questions that we didn't have time
to fit into a single show. But I asked Rain
to come back next week to offer even more sage
seasonal advice. So be sure to join Me and Rain
next time for more holiday insights on the Happiness Lab
(48:14):
with me Doctor Laury Santos
Pushkin. We are now deep in the heart of December,
a very dark cold month in the US which we
often try to brighten up with some festive cheer. But
while we're supposed to be having fun this time of year,
in reality, the holidays can be tough. There's often family squabbles,
(00:38):
financial pressures, and even a heightened sense of loneliness. Here
at the Happiness Lab, we like to tackle holiday woes
head on, which is why we asked you to send
us all your holiday challenges, the worries you have about
dinner table strife and gift giving anxiety and how to
really create a happier holiday. And Wow, Happiness Lab listeners,
(00:58):
did you deliver. We got tons of questions about how
to stay joyful this season, So armed with your questions
and wearing my Santa hat, I jumped on a call
with this episode's special holiday helper and asked him to
introduce himself.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Laurie, I'm Rain Wilson.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
I think you know that, and I have a podcast
called Soul Boom and it's based on my book of
the same name. It's about why we need a spiritual revolution,
but it's not spirituality like you normally think about it.
It's about spiritual tools from mental health, wellness, personal transformation,
(01:35):
and also maybe using some of those tools to help
make the world a better place.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
If there's any time we need spiritual tools to feel
better and make the world a better place, I think
it's during the holiday season.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
That's good transition.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Though best known as a comedic actor, Rain takes his
spirituality pretty seriously. Rain was raised in the Bahai faith,
but he too has spent time observing the December holidays,
like celebrating Christmas with his grandparents, and it was fitting
for me to have Rain on the show to chat
about the holidays, because when I think of holiday cheer,
I can't help think of d Shrewt, the famous character
(02:10):
Rain played in the Office, and my favorite ever Office
holiday episode when Dwight dresses up in a weird medieval
costume and attempts to get his coworkers to celebrate the
Pennsylvania Dutch version of Christmas.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
I was kind of hoping that Bellschnickel would become a thing.
I was really hoping that would be a catalyst and
there would be Bellschnickel celebrations everywhere, impish or admirable. But
I'm afraid it hasn't really caught on, but we need
to make that happen.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Maybe this is the year Bellschnickel twenty twenty five. Hashtag
Bellsnickel twenty twenty five. We're gonna make it work.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
I love it. Let's bring it well.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
If that was only a holiday problem we've faced, it
would be very easy just bringing the Bellschnickel back. But unfortunately,
folks are struggling during the holiday season. And one of
the things that we did on the Happiness Lab was
that we solicited all our fans and listeners to send
us their holiday woes. And our goal today Rain is
to give folks advice so that they can have a
happier and more joyful, more spiritually excited holiday season.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
I love It's such a great service to folks. It's
a trying time, so we need all the kind of
tools and the joy and connection we can get.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Start with the level one holiday woes. We got a
lot of requests for help managing holiday expectations. One of
our listeners, Karishmo on Instagram, just wrote that straight up
her holiday woe was short be suite fomo fear missing out. Yeah,
and I think the special kind of fomo. We get
in the holidays where we look on social media and
we see everyone's lights and perfect trees and the big
(03:40):
presence under the tree, and we just feel like, why
is my holiday such a mess? How do we get
through that?
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Well?
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Thank you for asking a television sitcom actor an occasional
author about advice around how to get through that. I
don't have any specific advice, but I will say this,
and I'm sure you've talked about it a ton on
your show. Social media breeds fomo like nobody's business. Yes,
I'm a by some intents and purpose, this is a
(04:09):
fairly successful guy.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Like I have a book.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
And a podcast, and I do acting roles, and I
work in nonprofits and have my faith.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Community and blah blah blah.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
I'm not saying like successful, look at me, but I'm saying, like,
you know, I've got I've got things going on, a
lot going on. I look at Instagram and like what
some actors are doing or podcasters, and like they have
they're putting out content every other day and there. And
when they take a trip, they don't just take the trip,
they they do a fun, crazy exercise and they they're
(04:40):
always redecorating, and they're doing pottery, and they're the list
goes on and on and on, and I'm always like, God,
I should be doing that. I should be doing that.
Why am I not doing I really should be doing that.
Why am I not doing that? I could be doing that.
I really could be doing that. So I've taken social
media off my phone nice.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
I only look.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
At it very occasionally, like maybe once or twice a
week for a limited amount of time, and I kind
of prepare myself going in that, Hey, there's be all
these actors, performers, podcasters, writers, just bringing so much to
the table, and I'm choosing to do that in a
very limited amount of time. So I think of the
same thing works for the holidays. What is the holiday
(05:24):
in your heart?
Speaker 2 (05:25):
You know? Is it like we're just gonna get a
chicken from.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Ralph's and sit around the table and watch a football game,
or is it going to be more than that?
Speaker 2 (05:35):
And whatever it is, it's okay because it's just about connecting.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
I love this because I think you know what happens
to you when you go on to social media during
the holiday season, like could warm your Christmas heart and
just make you filled with the holiday spirit, or it
could make you snarky and judgy and kind of sad
about your own life. And if it's the latter, then
you have a choice. You could just not hop on
Facebook and not hop on Instagram during the holiday season.
(05:59):
You could just kind of make sure you have in
real life connection time and just avoid it. So I
think this is a great advice. Monitor the FOMO and
the sadness and the social comparison, and if it's feeling crappy, remember,
especially on social media, you can step away.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
My therapist Bruce talks a lot about vigilance and preparedness
so we're not blindsided by people and situations and then
then we're not victimized by them. So if you're gonna
go onto Instagram, just be prepared and be vigilant that
(06:33):
it's going to probably in some ways inspire you.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
It's going to entertain you.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
You're gonna laugh, you're gonna see some funny videos, you're
gonna see some friends and check in. There's gonna be
some great, you know, oxytocin and dopamine releases that are
very positive, and then there's.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Also going to be some negative impact.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
So it's super important to not be a passive victim
and just click open socials, but to be vigilant and prepared,
just like you have to be vigilant and prepared, I
suppose when you come and meet your family for the holidays.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
And this is your therapist advice, but it's also ancient advice.
One of my favorite stoic philosophers, Epictitis, thousands of years ago,
had this little passage where he said, when you go
to the baths, remember what happens at the bats, And
the bats were like the thing people would like, go
to the bats, and that is like at the bats,
you know, there's warm water and it's great, but people
are going to jostle you. People are going to annoy you.
(07:23):
And I think like that idea of remember what happens
when you go to the bats is something that I
bring back over and over again in the holiday season,
especially during holiday travel. I have to fly to my
in laws in Iowa, who I love and are great,
But that takes me through Chicago's O'Hare airport, which is
not great. It's like it's like it's like what epics
he just meant by the bats before he knew about Yeah,
(07:44):
like air travel and these kinds of things.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
It's like, it's like he said, remember what happens at
O'Hare before going to O'Hare.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Yeah, some translations of the Latin I think do call
it O'Hair. Okay, but yeah, but we got to remember,
we got to be vigilant. And another thing we need
to be vigilant for something else that came up a
bunch with our listeners, which is this idea of perfectionism.
Everybody wants a holiday to be Christmas card perfect, but
pretty much nobody's holiday is Christmas heart perfect. How do
(08:12):
you let the holidays just be and fight that perfectionism?
How do you do that in your own life?
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Rain So, I grew up a member of the Bahai faith,
so Christmas was kind of a part time endeavor for
us and our extended family. We definitely celebrated Christmas more
as a cultural holiday. That was my grandparents had a
tree and there would be some gifts and stuff like that.
So I never kind of grew up with that kind
of pressure. But I know that there are people and
I've met them, and I have some family members that
(08:39):
start preparing six or nine months out.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
They go to those Christmas stores in the summer oh yeah,
you know yep.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
And for some folks it's one of their passions, you know,
decorating and.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Pulling off an amazing Christmas.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
But I just think that, you know, this sounds so hokey,
and maybe you can help me steer this out of
the gutter. But it sounds so hokey. But like, it's
about the Christmas spirit, right, if you're a Christian, it's
Jesus was born, the Prince of Peace is here. It's
a time of love, a connection, gift giving, coming in
(09:15):
from the cold, bringing a tree in from outside in
you know, the in the more Germanic tradition. But it's
it's about connection and gratitude and thanks and it's not
about stringing eighty seven popcorn strength and having the lights
perfect and having those photos up on Instagram and sharing
(09:37):
them in your Christmas card. And I would say, Laurie,
what is that? What is that human impulse toward beyond
perfectionism to make something better than it has to be?
Oh yeah, maybe that is perfectionist.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
So it's kind of like a not enough, not enough.
I'm not enough. My house isn't enough, the trees not enough,
the decorations are not enough. Yeah, I get I'm ashamed
to admit this, but I get this a lot, not
necessarily so much about the winter holidays, but about other
of situations in holidays. Sometimes I feel like every endeavor
that I'm supposed to be doing is like the middle
(10:14):
school science fair, and I'm supposed to get, you know,
the first prize in the middle school science fair. So
it can't just be like a regular tree. It has
to be like sure, the perfect tree and over the top.
And then it stops being fun. And I'm snarky with
my husband and I'm you know, wristling like in work
meetings because I'm so mad that the tree didn't come
out right, and it's like, wait, what am I doing?
Speaker 3 (10:32):
And I think too, I've been looking a lot at
my own workoholism. And Arthur Brooks just had a column
on workoholism and his weekly column for the Atlantic and
has so many great things in there, but one was,
you know, there's something wonderful about humans getting self esteem
(10:54):
from doing good work.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
But if we get all of our esteem.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
From impressing others, you know, putting in an obsessive amounts
of hours, that there's something really unhealthy.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
There's there's something really imbalanced.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
I have to look out for my own kind of
therapeutic practice of like I am enough. I'm enough just
as I am. Like you said, you can live in
a middle class home that isn't super decorated, it's not
a Arthur Stewart home, and that your home is enough,
your food is enough, You are enough as opposed to
(11:29):
like always am having to prove myself by doing more.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Yeah, and you said the word that I think we
all need to pay attention to, which is balance.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Right.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
It's fine to like care about your house looking nice,
but when that gets out of balance and now you're
in judge, snirky, pissy, sad mode, Like that's when something's
gone too far. So vigilance again, watch for that moment
of kind of imbalance and then try to rectify it all. Right, Now,
(12:05):
we have a longer holiday woe that we got from Beth,
And I think longer holiday was we got a lot
of because people have a lot of emotions when it
comes to.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
The holiday season.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
But this is about how we can manage holiday expectations
about hospitality during the holiday season. And so here's my
summary of Beth's email. So, Beth's family hosts this big
holiday event every year, and when Beth was home, she
ran into a high school friend who she found out
had had some losses in the year. High school friends
(12:35):
didn't have anybody to go to the holidays with, So
Beth emails her mom and says, Hey, you know, my friend,
she doesn't everywhere to go. Would it be cool if
I bring her. I'm going to assume it's cool. Let
me know if it's not. But it'd be so nice
to have somewhere, you know, let this person have a
happier holiday when she was going to be so lonely.
But then radio silence. Beth, here's nothing, and so she's like, uh,
(12:55):
this doesn't sound good. So a week before the event,
Beth email's back and says like, hey, you didn't write
back about my friend coming. I hope it's still cool.
Still radio silence. But Beth's like, you know, the holidays,
you know, Christmas hospitality or whatever it is. So Beth
invites the friend, and the mom is stone cold, silent,
very mean to Beth, and in fact so mean that
(13:18):
she puts Beth at the friend at a separate table
like the kid's table in the other room from the
holiday dinner whe everybody's eating well, which Beth lovingly referred
to as the punishment table. It makes me feel like,
you know, whatever problems my family, that didn't shun me
to a punishment table, at least in recent memories. So
that's good. But I think it shows off what we
(13:38):
often kind of go through, which is like, this is
supposed to be a season of hosting and the holiday spirit,
but we can get so tied to what we think
the meal is going to be and who's going to
be at the meal that we sometimes wind up not
being as kind as we should be. So any ideas
about how we can put some checks on that, like
fight back against this idea of we can be so
(13:59):
rigid that the holiday has to be this way that
we wind up hurting the people we care about.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Well, I got to do a little deer abby on
the letter. We got a deer abby this please?
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (14:07):
All right?
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Well, first of all, I always say to folks and
my own son, my wife, people I deal with when
I was had this company sold pancake. So many crossed
wires by texting and emailing, where it's like pick up
the phone, pick up the phone, pick up the phone,
(14:31):
hear someone's voice, run it by them voice to voice.
It's it's really hard, especially on a chain, and then
people don't want to respond because they you know, it's
not a great way to communicate. Also, some people have
very different opinions about Christmas. They're like, I want Christmas
with the family. This is my chance to just see
I don't want Bobby bringing his girlfriend, and Eddie bringing
(14:52):
his high school friend and Dominic bringing his sick friend.
Like I just want the family together. Some people feel
very strongly about that. I know my friend Kevin once
brought a girlfriend that he had only been dating for
like six months, and his family was like outraged, like
if it's a real girlfriend, And it's like, if it's
this is headed towards engagement or something great, but don't
(15:14):
just bring who you're currently seeing over. That's just doesn't
seem right. But I'm guessing the families from the Midwest,
and there's a lot of passive aggressive stuff going on here,
and the idea that the mom would be steing on
this for weeks or months and then just treat someone
like that in person is incredibly dysfunctional and shows like
(15:36):
they've got some there's conflict avoidance going on and passive
aggression going on. So I feel on all sides, but
I think some of this could have been avoided with
better communication.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
And one of the things we need to communicate about
is exactly what you're saying, right, which is like our values?
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Right.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
It might be that for Beth, like the Christmas season
is all about, you know, being kind to people in
need or kind of you know, Christmas hospitality. Who cares
what it might be that for Beth's mom, it's really
about exactly what you're saying. It's family. Like family, family,
that is value that we want to engage with in
the season, and if you bring some rando, it's going
to interrupt our family time in that matters. But you
can't know what other people's values are unless you first communicate.
(16:17):
But then second you are really honest and ask questions
and say, you know, how do you feel about this,
what does this mean to you?
Speaker 2 (16:23):
And so on.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
We often just don't do that second step of trying
to see how it would feel to someone, and that
matters a.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Lot, and increasing sensitivity and compassion to everyone during the
holidays to understand that, you know, Uncle Ronnie may just
want to watch the football game, you know, and Aunt
Sally really wants to connect with this side of the
family and you know, someone else it's really about Jesus
and church and going to church first thing in the morning,
(16:48):
and it's much more of a religious thing. Some people
expect a lot of presents, Like doesn't mean you have
to kowtow to their every need, but get in reality
with your family about is what is the holidays for us?
Speaker 2 (17:01):
And maybe that's a great source of conversation.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Is kind of like on Boxing days, sit around like, hey, everyone,
let's get together, let's talk about what the holidays mean
for us? And like next year, like what is it
that we want to do? I mean, what do we
love about it? What do we think we could change?
What if we didn't exchange gifts? Because it's a lot
of pressure and we just all put in money towards
this charitable event that we feel strongly about, our cause
(17:26):
that we feel strongly about, you know. But to encourage
that kind of group conversation to kind of move it forward.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Well, this is a nice transition because the next set
of holiday woes that we're going to tackle are navigating
family dynamics. We've already started off hat of the conversation,
but we have some specific ones that I think might
need the Dear rain advice, And so here's one from
cal quote. The biggest challenge for me going home for
family holidays was not only listening to a close relative
(17:56):
boast about all the material possessions and fabulous job titles
they had, but also watching my parents not an admiration
and approval whilst looking down on me for living in
a two bedroom apartment and making loaded comments about my
old car end quote, if only.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
I was more successful end quote.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Families bring up a lot of old school family expectations
that often go and said, because of this conversation issue,
how do we navigate that.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
I don't know you're going to have to take this one,
but I do. I hear about this a lot. Someone
is like, so you're still single, like you know, the
expectation that you're going to be in a relationship, or
did you get that raise you were supposed to get
last year, or you're still at the same dead end job.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Like There's can be some implications there.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
And one thing I will say is that I think
this is the grumpy old man in me, But I
feel like people are less good at conversation than they
used to be. And maybe it's because we spend so
much time looking at our phones.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
We're so out of practice, we're so out of practice.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
Yeah, because I think that a lot of times people
are like they just ask the same old questions.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
So, how how have you been good?
Speaker 3 (19:07):
How's the health, nice weather, we're take any vacations? How's
your job, how's your kid? How's your mom doing? How
about those bears? How is ohare airport? And then you're done,
And then they're kind of like that's it. And if
you try and go deeper, people are not very good
(19:29):
at listening. Yeah, yeah, I don't This doesn't answer the
question at all, but I think it's something that all
of us can just be working on is getting Because
to me, great conversation comes.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Out of curiosity.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
Yeah, Like if I meet someone interact with them, I'm
deeply curious, like who are they, what makes them tick?
What do they think about things? How did they get
to where they are? And maybe that.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Helps make me a podcast host or you as well.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
But I think that's the key. We all need to
become podcast hosts. Around the family dinner table, right, we
all need to bring in a little more curiosity, And
this is a spot where I think the research helps
us a lot. My colleague Nick Epley, who's this professor
at the University of Chicago studies calls undersociality, this idea
that we're not as social as we could be and
we don't understand the benefits of sociality and the way
(20:15):
that we should. And he has this technique that he
calls deep conversation, which is avoid the shallow stuff. Know,
how is the weather, how is O'Hare? You ask, what's
one thing that you're really grateful for this year? Oh?
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Wow, that's great.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Yeah, what's one thing about your work that really surprises you?
You know, what's the last time you cried? Right, which
is actually one of the items on his survey. And
what people predict is like, awful, this is going to
be like way too overshare. But what happens is people
really enjoy it. Even when they're talking about stuff that
might be tough to talk about, they wind up feeling
closer afterwards. So I think if your family conversations are
(20:51):
veering into this stuff, that's either activating all this old
school I'm not good enough, or you feel like you're
veering into like that career conversation you've had forty times
and you don't want to go through it again. Just
switch gears and get curious, to get a little deeper.
I think it can help a lot.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
What about this, What about heading it off at the past,
like gather everyone to get either you arrive, Hey, everyone together.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
I got a couple announcements.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Yes I'm still working at blah blah blah, and no
I didn't get the rays, and yeah my car sucks.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
I'm gonna I'm looking to get a new one next year.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
And I've only had a couple of dates with this Susie,
but I'm still single.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
And there you have it.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
You can you can make like a button and so
you don't have to get into it, like a little
button that says still at the dead end, job still
with Susie?
Speaker 3 (21:38):
Yes you still for conversation cards? Hand out, hand out
the cards. Here's some other questions to ask me on
the flip it over. And then it's like, when's the
last time you cried?
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Look lock.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
It sounds stupid, but I think props can be incredibly helpful,
and in fact, Nick will well we'll share some of
these with the episode. But Nick has a set of
things you can download, so literally print them out and
stick them on the table so that when the conversation
dies down, if it's just on the table, someone will
pick it up and now you're talking about when the
last time you cried was, and you'll feel better.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
I would love to get those resources.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
I don't think you need them, Ran, I feel like
you're pretty good at conversation being a natural podcast host.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
No, but I love like even that idea of like
when's the last time you cry? Because that's going to
be a portal to so many stories, you know, and
to get to know someone.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
It's it's such a simple question, but it's tugging on
the thread that unravels the sweater, you know.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Yeah, And I think if nothing else, our time with
the people we love should be there to get their stories. Again,
not to get morbid, but many of us have family
members that are getting up there. You know, we might
not have time to extract those stories. It feels like
we have forever, but in practice, you know, unless we
ask these deeper questions, these curious questions, we might ever
(22:50):
get there. So we'll give you some tools to help
out with that. You can find a version of these
conversation tips from Nick Epley on my website at doctor
Lauri Santos dot com slash deep Questions. That's d r
Lauri Santos dot com slash deep questions. Why not give
them a try and boost your social connection this holiday season.
It's time for a quick break, but Rain and I
(23:11):
will be back soon with more holiday tips when the
Happiness Lab returns in a moment. Okay, not just family
drama people are worried about. It's also the drama that
we experience in the world. Politics is getting so deep.
(23:32):
I'm gonna take the Santa hat off, both because it's
hot and also to signal we're going to the hard
stuff right now. Lots of families are worried about the
fact that their holidays are spent with people who have
political beliefs that might not align with their own political beliefs.
And we heard from many many listeners who wanted some
help with this.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
So here's just one.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Ki Kim notes on Instagram. I'm married to a wonderful
husband of twenty three years. He was raised in a
conservative family and I was raised in a liberal one.
It is a nightmare hearing both sides argue about politics.
Especially because both of us were raised in families so
focused on politics that we hate politics. It is a
problem every year. Please give us some advice. Do your
(24:14):
ragin you want to take this one?
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Yeah, I mean it's really simple. I mean you don't
have to engage number one. Number two you can say hey,
I choose not to engage as a proactive response.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
And number three you could.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Kind of whether it's by email beforehand or gathering everyone
run around at the get go and just say, listen, guys,
we live in such politically divisive times.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Can we make an agreement about what we're going to
do about this?
Speaker 3 (24:44):
I mean, half of us voted for Trump, half of
us didn't, Half of us feel like this about immigration,
half of us don't like We all know that we're
not going to solve anything by getting into it. We
may actually increase division. Can we focus on what unites us?
What are those precious points of unity that we can
focus our conversation on, Because.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
I think that that's always the way to go.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
And studies show that when you find stuff that you're
united on, it can overcome, you know, some of the
yucky political differences. There's some work, for example, that realizing like, hey,
we both love the same sports team, Like we are
huge Patriots fans that can overcome a little bit of
the divisiveness when it comes to politics.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
You know.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
So if I'm if I'm a liberal and I know
somebody else is a Patriots fan just like me, then
it's okay that they voted for Trump because we still
have this one thing that unites us. And so think
about the uniting things and talk about those in detail.
But if you want to get into politics, I think
this is a spot where the research shows a path forward,
which is, don't talk about the like the facts of
(25:50):
the matter, talk about the lived experience and the feelings.
There's some of this lovely work that's looking at the
phenomena of perspective, getting asking for people's lived experiences. It's
kind of similar to these deep questions, but you ask
you know, when was the time that you felt like,
you know, you were really struggling. You know, Oh, I see,
(26:10):
like that's from your perspective, you know, when I think
of I don't know, people who are going through a
tough time because of finances, you know, that's what they're
going through and so on. But it's another way that
you can talk about lived experiences and values and see
those things, and you don't have to talk about who
you've voted for, but you can get into the thick
of it, which you can kind of give you some
insight into, you know, where somebody might be coming from,
(26:31):
if they think a little bit differently than you. You
don't have to agree with them. But by asking questions
and trying to learn more, you can often get a
little bit of compassion.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Sometimes, Yeah, I think, And there's that Curiosity podcast thing again,
asking questions.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
No one likes to be lectured too.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
No one likes to have facts that they're unsure of
kind of spouted at them. And I love that idea
about talking about lived experience. And you know, like climate
change is something that's very important to me, and you know,
renewable resources, regenerative agriculture, you know, climate solutions, climate communications.
(27:11):
But I wouldn't go to a family gathering and start
talking about CO two.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Bring a power point and walk through, you know, point
by point, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
And lecture about oh, you're driving that hummer and here's
the output.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
And if you drove a Kia, you know.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
You could do like I'm not gonna do any of that,
but I might talk about how hard it was to
have had evacuated four different wildfires in the last six
years in three different houses, which I did undergo and undertook.
I can talk about how I'm afraid that the you know,
(27:49):
the Pacific Northwest woods that I loved growing up in
won't be there for my son or his kids, and
how can we preserve nature?
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Talk about a shared love of nature. You know, what was.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
It like growing up on that pond or when you
would go fishing each summer?
Speaker 2 (28:06):
What was that like?
Speaker 3 (28:07):
Because both left and right do want to preserve nature,
conserve nature, cherish nature, and that's a point of commonality.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Yeah, and I think we forget that we wind up
having way more of these points of commonality than we think.
This is another bias of the mind that I think
just gets even more extreme during the holiday season, which
is that if you ask, most people agree on most things,
Like most people care about the environment and don't want it,
don't want the earth to go away. Most people care about,
(28:40):
you know, free and fair elections. Most people care that
people are being respected no matter what their identity is.
Like if you look at broad strokes, most of us
agree on most of the issues. The nuance is, like
you know, in the little things about how we want
to execute those things. But if you find ways to
stick to people's broader values, and you do that with
curiosity and asking questions, getting perspective rather than giving your
(29:03):
own perspective, you usually wind up and safer territory.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Well said, well done. All right.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Here's another one. This is one I can totally relate to.
It's from an email from Rachel. She says, my mom
and my partner's mom feel very attached to the holidays
and have never been okay with quote sharing the holiday
from year to year. This causes us to split time
and run around like crazy seeing everyone limiting the actual
fund that can be had. I hear there's from so
(29:32):
many families who have young kids. Where are the kids
going to go? You know for the big holiday moments
like if you celebrate Christmas Christmas morning? Are the kids
going to be at my in laws? Or are they
going to be at my partner's in laws? And families
feel like they get left out if they don't get chosen.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
Yeah, there's also a lot more split families, divorced families.
I know people I know one guy every year, friend
of mine. You know, his ex wife hosts the Thanksgiving
dinner and he does the day after Thanksgiving barbecue, and
he's always a little surly about it.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
It's like, why do I have to get the day after?
Yeh can't? Why can't we alternate? You know? But that's
just how it is.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
And again, this is adjusting to the holidays. And you know,
one way to maybe approach this, Laurie, and I'm wondering
your thoughts on this is in soul Boom we talk
a lot about spiritual paths and solutions towards mental health
and making the world a better place, and time and
(30:43):
time again, this concept of service comes up. And when
we are in a service mode, we actually increase our
own happiness. We think that what's going to make us
happier is getting what we want and setting things up
so that we get what we want. But oftentimes by
turning that around where we can walk into a circumstance
(31:04):
and say, how can I be of service here? You know,
how can I be of service to my in laws
and to my mom to give her, you know, the
Christmas that she wants And you don't want to, of course,
just sacrifice your needs and suffer, that's not what I'm
talking about, and not speak up for what's important to you.
(31:24):
And you know, you have to honor your voice. But
like for my friend with the barbecue, it's shifting his
mentality where it's like, this.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Is what the kids, What do the kids want? This
is what they like?
Speaker 3 (31:37):
Let maybe of service to my family, I'm going to
sacrifice a Thanksgiving dinner for the well being of my
kids from this divorce and then also provide them with
this barbecue. And so it's shifting into a service mindset.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
What do you think I love it.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
I mean, the research shows that this is exactly the
way to feel better. You mentioned like, well, you don't
want to sacrifice too much, but I think what you
see from the studies is like it's not a sacrifice
at all. If you can get into that service mindset,
then you get something out of the act of doing
something kind for others. And I think this might be
the path out of it. You know, if you're feeling
a little rigid about your family coming at a certain
(32:17):
time and you really thought, like what would be a gift,
you know, to your young kids who are traveling with
a toddler, Maybe throw a hair airport and have to
frantically go from one house to another. You might say, hey,
let's think about if we could do this a different time.
We'll do it a week out, We'll do it the
week after, you know, the holidays, when everything's on sale,
can get the decorations for cheaper at all, you know,
the cheap hot chocolate and so on. Like just that act.
(32:40):
I could imagine that Rachel, who was going through this,
would say, oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. Right,
But it's this act of remembering that the gifts we
can give don't have to be gifts. They can really
be our kindness and our care during these tough times.
They can also be asking other people for help. So oddly,
some of the studies show that another way we can
(33:00):
be of service is to ask for the things we need,
especially if it's relatively easy for the person we're asking
to give it.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Do you have like an example of that how to?
How does that work? Well?
Speaker 1 (33:10):
We do, in fact, from a happier story from Maria.
Do you see how good I am at the podcast transitions?
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Oh? Wow, the transitions are so good, so much better
than my podcast.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
All right, well, well here's for Maria, which I like
ending this section on dealing with family dynamics with this
particular example because it's kind of a positive. Well, it
starts out bad, but it winds up being positive. So
Maria tells us a story about her worst Christmas where
she has a fight with her husband a few days
before Christmas. Doesn't remember what the fight is about, but
during the fight, she asked the husband do you love
me anymore? And he starts crying and he says he
(33:42):
doesn't know. Basically, fast forward, you know, twenty four hours
or so, it's the end of their entire relationship, the
end of their marriage. But Maria is about to go
home to visit her mom over Christmas. Mom loves Christmas,
and she's a little bit worried that she's going to
ruin her mom's Christmas by being like, my marriage just ended,
and is tempted to pretend this isn't happening, to hold
(34:03):
it in. But here's the part that I think the
story gets happier. But she notes, then I realize, my mom,
who's over sick years old, she's had many wonderful Christmases
in her life. One bad Christmas is not going to
ruin that for her. And in fact, she would appreciate
it much more if I reached out to her and
asked for help. She would be angry if she heard
later on that I'd suffered alone. So she goes home,
(34:23):
she tells her mom. She calls her, and of course
the mom is super happy, because when does a mom
get to give that kind of present to her daughter
over Christmas of supporting her through something that's really terrible.
Other members of the family find out. Maria's worried what
they're going to say, But of course most people are
incredibly compassionate, incredibly interested in helping, and it winds up
(34:44):
being like a warmer, closer feeling Christmas than Maria had
had before, despite I mean, obviously the sadness of what
she went through. She ends the story with I hope
this inspires others to reach out for help too, and
not to suffer alone. The helper will feel needed, and
I'm sure it will increase their happiness and sense of
purpose too.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
Wow and fun fact, you know that's how Maria and
I met. And she's right here, Maria. He say hi
to LORI say she took your letter here, come here.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
No, But it makes exactly your point, right This idea
of service. We forget that if we can shift into
a service mindset, we feel better. But also if we
can make it easy for others to shift into a
service mindset, if we can give them the gift of
helping us, I think that's huge. And this gets back
to some of the perfectionism we were talking about before.
I think a lot of the people that go into
like perfectionist holiday mode are often bad at asking for
(35:36):
and receiving help with things. We've all had the family
the family martyr who does the turkey and does all
the stuff, and you're like, oh, can I set the table,
and like, no, no, no, I'm going to do it myself.
Like think back and realize that you can help others
by letting them help you a little bit too.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
You know.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
A lot of this too goes back to what we
were saying at the very beginning, and I think it's
kind of preparedness and vigilance, and it's proactive communication. I
imagine I don't know what the circumstances were, but I
imagine her sharing with her family, Hey, I'm going through
this really hard time.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
It's a holiday. I could use your support, I could
use a safe space.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
I could use a space to grieve and to love
and to just be surrounded by people that love me.
That would be really important to me. And if you
hear that, you're like, oh yeah, if yeah, I'm in,
I'm all in. Of course, how can I yes, be
a part of that. But part of that is on
the marias to communicate it well. And this is oftentimes
(36:36):
what I find with folks is just living in a
little bit more passive victim state as opposed to like
a being a protagonist of their life, whether it's showing
up to be of service or showing up to ask
for your needs to be met.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
Yeah, and I think we can apply this to so
many of the things we talked about. You know, let's
get back to politics. That really tricky one for so
many individuals. I think you can just start with you know,
I've been feeling really burned out, have a tough year.
What I would really love is just for all of
us to just you know, put that to the side
this year, Right, that feels really different. Then I disagree
with your politics, Dad, and so we're not going to
talk about it, but like, what I really want is
(37:13):
just some closeness. Can we just talk about old times
and you know it just there's ways to ask for
help that make it easy for folks to grant you
what you need and then everybody's happy.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
Nice. I love it all. Right.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
Now we're jumping to the third holiday woe that we
heard about a lot kind of maybe built up a
little bit from Maria's story. A lot of us are
going through sometimes of grief and loss and loneliness during
the holidays. Here's an email from Mindy. One thing I
struggle with at the holidays is anticipating the loss I feel.
Both of my maternal grandparents died in early December. My
(37:47):
father died a month before Christmas, and my mother is
currently dying from als and will be gone before the holidays.
What are the holidays without our grandparents and parents? This
is something I know you talk a lot about on
soul boom right thinking about spirituality, and one of the
things we use our spiritual experiences for is to navigate
(38:07):
grief and loss, especially during these like emotionally fraught times.
So any ideas about how to get through this, well.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
That's a great question and a really great topic.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
And I love that you're covering this because I don't
think that this has covered a lot in podcasts or
conversations about happiness.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
Yes, it's like, how.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
How do we navigate happiness and well being when we're
really dealing with grief, loss and death. And you're absolutely right,
like the holidays can bring up people that we lost
during the year. It can be people that we lost
that we miss that used to be there and are
no longer there, are sick or what have you. And
(38:50):
you know, contemporary American culture, we don't talk a lot
about this stuff. You know, we tend to kind of like, oh,
I don't want to bum everyone out, so we're not
going to talk about what we're grieving or what have you.
I'm I'm a little bit of an overshare kind of person.
Maybe it's also being from California, but chronic oversharing, but
(39:13):
you know, perhaps it's carving out some.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
Time to honor the grief.
Speaker 3 (39:18):
It's almost like the oscars in memoriam, like, Okay, we're
going to take four minutes now to show the slide
show of the people that died this last year, just
to kind of like have a somber note and honor that.
And I think that's great, but maybe maybe on a
family level and this would I think be hard for
a lot of people to initiate. It's kind of like,
(39:39):
can we come together and say a prayer for Aunt
Judy who's sick or Uncle Bob who passed away last year?
Can everyone can we go around the circle and say,
you know who we miss or how we might be
grieving or are going through. Because when you give it
the space and honor it, then you can celebrate and
it's not weighing on you like a wet blanket. You know,
(40:01):
you can just take five, ten, fifteen minutes to do that,
and then you can have days of joy because you've
taken the time to you know, to recognize what's real.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
I think this is so critical. I mean, one of
the things we know about negative emotions is that like
negative emotions, when you have to feel them, they don't
last as long as we think, right. I mean, obviously
the grief of losing a loved one lasts a lot,
but those moments when it comes up, it's not gonna
last forever. The problem is that we kind of suppress
those emotions down. We say, nope, this holiday season, we can't,
(40:34):
you know, think about Grandpa. We have to pretend that
everybody's perfect. But when we allow time to just sit
there and like radically accept our emotions, the studies show
that those emotions wind up passing a little bit better.
Like when you sit down to feel the grief, you're
going to feel it, and if you allow yourself to
do that, you'll give yourself some space. But then, just
as you said, it's like, Okay, now I can make
(40:56):
space for the joy because I'm not using part of
my frontal lobe to hold down the grief that I'm
feeling about Grandpa for the whole Christmas season. I gave
myself some space to experience that, and I think that's
so important. Happy holidays doesn't have to mean that we're
happy all the time at every moment. It's like, you know,
a ten out of ten on joy for every second.
Like there's a lot of nostalgia there, there's a lot
(41:19):
of past coming up, there's a lot of dealing with
tough things. We need to make space for all the
emotions that come through it, and that lets those emotions
kind of take their course and go on their merry way.
Speaker 3 (41:29):
That's so well said. I met this old twelve step
guy once and he said, the only way out is through,
meaning like, the only way to be relieved of with
a burden of whatever grief you're feeling is to go
through it. And like you say, it can be really scary,
but it's oftentimes briefer and easier than we think it's going.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
To be and more socially shared. Right you bring it up,
and it's like, even if someone's not grieving the exact
person you're grieving, and if their loss is not the same,
I bet that pretty much everyone you interact with during
the holiday season is going through something that's making them sad,
some loss, something that feels different than they'd like it
to be, and so opening up space for other people
to share that stuff can be really important for our
(42:13):
happiness too. That's great, But that connection leads me to
the next thing that people go through, which is loneliness.
During the holiday season, all our social media feeds are
filled with people caroling and hanging out and having dinner together,
but there's a lot of folks who are feeling lonely,
either because they've had a recent loss or just because
they're alone. We had one anonymous commentator on YouTube saying
(42:34):
that his holiday woe is quote being lonely and just
not having somebody to spend the holiday moments with, sort
of this feeling of watching others have and experience happy
moments and feeling like that might never happen to me.
I think during holidays it can feel like everybody is
happy and being social and you're not. Sometimes, even if
you're in a big group of family or a big
(42:55):
group of people, we can experience the deepest loneliness there. So,
what are some strategies for feeling a little bit more
connected during the holiday season, especially if you're kind of
feeling a little lonely.
Speaker 3 (43:05):
Well, my first experience of this had to do in
an episode of Happy Days where Arthur Fonzarelli, who's so cool,
you know, and beloved by everyone and can get any
girl he wants, and he's got his motorcycle and his
pinball machine and his garage and stuff like that, and
they Richie Cunningham realizes.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
He's spending Christmas alone.
Speaker 3 (43:28):
And he's cooking a can of soup, and so they
invite the Fonds over to the Cunninghams.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
And all is saved.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
But in all seriousness, you know, I'm sure you've spoken
about this a ton. We're in this loneliness epidemic. Yes,
and especially with young people. A lot of times people
are feeling more and more not just isolated lonely, but
lonely while in groups of other people, lonely while at work,
(43:59):
lonely while at school.
Speaker 1 (44:01):
And I think this happens in families a lot, especially
if you're feeling disconnected, you're sitting around the dinner table,
feeling like I don't belong, I don't can to these people.
Speaker 3 (44:10):
Yeah, so you know, I just want to honor that
this is a very real thing.
Speaker 2 (44:15):
You know.
Speaker 3 (44:15):
I think the work on loneliness has to be done
way before it's Christmas time, you know. So I think it's, uh,
that's a good time for some therapy. It's you know,
going on meetup.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
It's it's.
Speaker 3 (44:29):
Little by little, bit by bit exerting yourself into areas
where you might feel a little bit of discomfort. Join
a bowling league or a kickball league, or a Dungeons
and Dragons game, join a park cleanup.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
There's this.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
Nonprofit in our area called Food Forward where they get
and they pick stuff from the orchards around to give
out a food kitchens.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
And the camaraderie is amazing.
Speaker 3 (44:58):
They come over and they pick your extravocados and lemons
and stuff like that, and and you know it's going
to good and they're having such a good time doing it.
You know, finding places to volunteer, and maybe volunteering around
the holidays is always a good idea too, a soup
kitchen or something like that. These all sound kind of obvious.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
I don't know, but I think they have.
Speaker 1 (45:18):
I think you are offering something important, right. You're getting
back to what you talked about before, which is this
idea of service. And just one thing we know about
the psychology of loneliness is that a really good cure
for loneliness is reaching out to other people. It's like
thinking of your own service is trying to make other
people less lonely or make other people happy in other ways.
And so I think you're getting at it. If you're
(45:39):
feeling lonely in the holiday season, reach out to a
person that you think might be a need or that
you think might be lonely, and just check in, not
for the goal of trying to feel less lonely yourself,
but just to say I'm solving the loneliest crisis around me.
And studies show that it'll make you feel a little
boost of belonging, a little boost of social connection, and
then you create these ripple effects that wind up making
(46:01):
everybody feel a little bit happier.
Speaker 3 (46:04):
But isn't part of the problem texting, because yes, I
make a lot of calls and I have like I
have a couple buddies I just talked to several times
a week, and we just like catch up on movies.
How's it going, what's going on? And it's really old fashioned.
It's boo boo boo boo boop, Hey, how's it going?
Speaker 2 (46:25):
Like?
Speaker 3 (46:26):
And they used to say, oh, phone is so disconnecting.
It's being in person, and obviously being in person, but
you know, can we.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
Get a coffee? Calling?
Speaker 3 (46:35):
Just calling to I just called to say I love you.
I'm just calling to check in on you. Because we
can feel connected. It's a fake kind of connection when
we text someone say how's it going, Hey, how are
you good?
Speaker 2 (46:48):
All right?
Speaker 3 (46:48):
You cool?
Speaker 2 (46:49):
All right later? It's not soul satisfying, right.
Speaker 3 (46:54):
And social media is the same way, Like you can
post a picture of your cat and get thirty seven
hearts on it and feel like you have thirty seven friends,
but it's not a real connection around your cat.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
Yeah, the science shows best connection, most newutritious, psychologically nutritious
connection is at least in real time. You know, so
the phone you're picking up and you say, hey, how's
it going? You say, oh Hi, it's not like a
text like voop how's it going? And then voop back.
But all that said, you know, if all you got
is time to text, do that rather than nothing.
Speaker 3 (47:24):
Right.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
But yeah, calling on the phone, or if you want
to get a big technological advancement, you can use these
other video tools. We have Skype, FaceTime. If you don't
have a landline, like Rain, feel free to use your
iPhone to someone else the video like the little camera feature.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
I send facts.
Speaker 3 (47:42):
I still send facts.
Speaker 1 (47:43):
One of the best forms of social connection during the
holiday season. Did you get my holiday facts?
Speaker 2 (47:48):
Facts? You can't get my facts.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
I had such a blast hanging out with Rain Wilson.
Thanks so much to every listener who sent in a
holiday woe for us to chew on. Unfortunately, there were
lots of your tough questions that we didn't have time
to fit into a single show. But I asked Rain
to come back next week to offer even more sage
seasonal advice. So be sure to join Me and Rain
next time for more holiday insights on the Happiness Lab
(48:14):
with me Doctor Laury Santos
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