April 4, 2024 • 42 mins
In this enlightening episode, we delve into the psychology behind choosing happiness and the profound impact it can have in one's life. Steeped in the insights of Harvard Professor, Arthur Brooks, this episode urges you to explore the power of 'acting how you want to feel'. We touch upon often overlooked ideas such as 'faking it until you make it' and talk about the potential pitfalls of excessive positivity. We also explore the connection between our reactions to life's trials and our future, discussing themes of worry, fear, and anxiety and how to convert these into positive contexts.
Not only do we provide thoughtful discussions, but we also share personal anecdotes about optimism, tackling crises, achieving success through visualization, and more. We offer renewed understanding to long-standing wisdom and delve into philosophical classics. We connect with listeners through sincere conversations about daily life, reinforcing the idea that choosing happiness is not just an option but a lifestyle.
The episode also interestingly looks into 'faking it until you make it' in the context of personal dreams and challenges. We discuss how altering personal spaces can bring in a fresh wave of energy and positivity. Through intimate talks circling around acceptance, attracting positivity, the power of neurodiversity, managing expectations and more, we promote the might of a positive mindset.
In a deep-dive into choosing happiness, we share insights about decluttering life, fostering joy and prioritizing human connections. Shedding light on the link between external chaos and inner turmoil, we draw from personal experiences of overcoming life's obstacles with gratitude and positivity. The talk closes on an encouraging note reminding listeners to prioritize happiness above all else. Tune in to this heartwarming episode to discover the true art of choosing happiness.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.
(00:29):
Okay, ladies, today we're going to talk about choosing happiness,
just kind of as a way of life.
You know, just especially on the other side, or we were in a down and a funk,
just the choice of choosing happiness.
And I think, Lauren, you watched something or listened to something.
Yeah, so I'm a, this is not a plug and I'm not being paid for this,
but I love the Today Show.
(00:50):
I love to drink my coffee and watch the Today Show. and I was watching it this
morning and Hoda Kotb has a podcast called Making Space and she'd had this guest on.
His name is Arthur Brooks. He's a professor of business at Harvard and I think
he's written a book on choosing happiness, but I need to know more about that.
(01:12):
I also haven't listened to the podcast yet. I need to do that.
So they were playing a clip of the podcast and Hoda was talking about how she
tells her kids, sometimes you can choose happiness.
This like that that it can be a choice a lot
of the time and he said yeah you have to act like you
want to feel and I wrote that down immediately because
so many times we can get bogged down
(01:35):
in things and feeling tired or or sad or depressed or dissatisfied even like
or even one conversation can put you off yeah and if you don't want to feel
that like just figure out what you do how how you do want to feel and get there.
Like, and I, I have, my therapist says fake it till you make it all the time.
(01:57):
Like I already going through a whole thing with her about that,
but whether that means like, you know, what's going to make me feel happy right
now, go like, is that watching my favorite movie?
Is that going for a walk? Is that like, whatever's going to make you feel happy?
Or if you want to, if you're not feeling very attractive, okay.
What makes you feel attractive?
Your favorite dress, red lipstick, you know, lingerie, like,
(02:18):
what is it? What's It's going to make you feel good. Go in and do that.
And eventually, and he said in the brief bit of the podcast that I saw,
that eventually you start to, you trick your brain and you start to actually get there.
I mean, it's like a shortcut.
That's how I felt it. Yeah. So just the act of choosing to be happy,
(02:41):
which is something I've told my kids. I'll get stuck in one of those.
They're depressed or angry or just having a
come apart whatever and i remember saying but you can choose
to be happy you can change this of course when you're kids i mean they're that's
hard for them to grow the concept but really yeah yeah oh i definitely think
(03:03):
you can choose i think you can choose i you said in some situations i think
you can choose to be happy.
In pretty much all situations. Most, I would say most. You can be happy.
Most situations, unless you're like, I don't know, you're a medical person and
I'm not, but like, unless you're like clinically depressed, right?
But I think you can find a little bit of joy in something, even if you are terminally
(03:29):
ill or if you are, you know, have just buried somebody.
You know, that's what funerals are for, to see the good part of the person and
talk about the good times. and that kind of smooths those edges to get you through.
Okay. I had a terrible conversation today and I walked in here in a terrible
runaway, but I brought my stitching with me and that is a self-soothing and it makes me very happy.
(03:55):
So that's what I have chosen to be happy today at the end of the day.
Well, I've talked on other podcasts. My sister and I call that Pollyanna.
How can we Pollyanna this? What is it that we need to Pollyanna about this?
And I think that there's a lot to be said for being optimistic,
(04:16):
for looking at, you know, just sort of a pile of.
And saying, okay, what's good? Is there anything good we can pick out of this?
You know? I do that. Yeah. I do that because it's, and part of it's my personality type.
I don't like to feel pain. Oh, I don't either. Or upset.
I hate that feeling. So I will try to figure out how to feel good in pretty
(04:39):
much any, like my, I found out yesterday, my college is closing.
My, where I went to undergrad is closing and we've all been pretty broken up about it.
But I'm trying not to think about it too much and my friend texted me today
and he said it feels like somebody died and I said no I know it does and that's
why I'm compartmentalizing and trying not to think about this too much what
a blessing for the memories that you have of going there yeah.
(05:04):
That's a blessing yeah there's a lot of good memories with that but even that
I'm like okay if I think on this too much it's going to take me to a place that
I want to be so I'm going to you know,
do things that make me feel good good that's old
old wisdom is look for the silver lining
yeah and you can pretty much
(05:26):
find something good in almost every situation
i mean well i think it's also a lot you've got that over your lauren in your
kitchen over your window to be a goldfish the ted lasso thing yeah i think i
have i'm a goldfish a lot i think just in my general nature i don't hang on
to the bad things i tend tend to forget the way I've been treated in a lot of ways.
(05:48):
I, when I love, I over love and I will love it.
You know what I mean? Like I just, I don't, I don't hold things against the
people that I really love.
You know what I mean? It just, now I will protect myself if I have to,
but you know what I mean? But being a goldfish, I think is a part of that too.
And that if you're a gold, do his whole thing, you're not dwelling.
Yeah. You're not on the negative or the bad aspects. You're pulling whatever
(06:12):
was good and moving on. and at that point, it's in the past. Yeah.
By dwelling on whatever that bad feeling is you're having, you're affecting your future.
And life is short, so you don't want to spend, I mean, why would you waste your
time feeling yucky if it's a choice, you know, or if you can choose something better?
(06:34):
You know, and I remember being a teenager and sort of dwelling in that space
of sadness and melancholy and all of that. But I don't want that.
It's almost like I was exploring it. Yeah, drama.
But now I have now lived through enough
drama of actual provided by
(06:57):
life drama that I could not avoid I'm not interested in participating in that
if I don't have to you know and I think we've talked about this before is that
there's some there are some people that are so upset about about such small
little things in their lives.
(07:17):
And I can look at them now and think, wow, what a blessed life they must have.
Because that is the reaction of someone who has not gone through any sort of trauma.
Yeah. That something so small can seem so big.
I mean, maybe that's not right. I have no science to back that up.
But it seems to me that in this point in my life, after everything,
(07:38):
I'm not, I would rather be on the sunny side of things.
I would do not want to dwell on that. That's sort of that. Don't sweat the small stuff.
And life is the small. Look, we're hitting all the cliches. We are.
Cliched. It's six in one. Not the other.
So my daughter, she gets very, she's in college and gets very bogged down in
(08:02):
everything that she has to do in her list.
And, you know, I hate to tell her that her list will only grow as she gets older.
But, you know, she has an essay due and she starts talking about this,
that, and the other. And I'm like, wait, wait, wait. wait, that's next week's problem.
She's like, yeah. And I was like, we're going to have to Scarlett O'Hara that.
That is a problem for another day. And I know that that is not a movie everybody,
you know, it's not necessarily. That's also a biblical thing.
(08:25):
You don't borrow trouble.
You're not borrowing trouble. Do not worry for today.
Tomorrow has it. I was like, you know, we're not, we cannot lump all of your
upset and anxiety into today.
There's some things you're going to have to filter out. And that's going to
be a next week thing. And anxiety and worry and all of that is so easy to feel.
(08:46):
But really, all of that is just fear manifesting itself.
And fear's not... There's a quote...
We just did the play Tick, Tick, Boom. Oh, I loved it. It was fabulous.
It was so good. And there's this quote that one of the, it's all about the lead
character's like anxiety about not being where he wants to be in his career and in life.
(09:07):
And I mean, just every, it's about all of his fears, essentially.
And he's going to give up his dream, essentially. And his best friend says to
him, this is your fear talking.
And you just have to thank your brain for sharing that fear and get on with it.
Like move on because it's not it
isn't real you know just because your brain manifests it
(09:29):
doesn't mean that it's yet of being afraid is
just a feeling you know well that's what is
it is it and it may be biblical y'all may can tell me
or not that worry is basically from the devil yeah
that it is his way that worry does has
no productive end there is nothing that
comes from worry that is helpful no there
(09:51):
it does nothing but rob you of any peace
that you could have or that would help
you move towards a solution about whatever it is certainly keeps you from living
in the moment yeah worrying about it but all of that energy you put into the
worry if it truly is a big problem that needs to be solved all of that energy
(10:11):
you're putting into worry worry should be channeled into solving the problem.
Or, you know, or preparing against the problem or whatever it is.
But the worry is, it's like robbing you of that forward momentum.
That's true. I, anytime that, anytime something like that, I had a little bit
of this earlier today, just like a, I was like, I wonder if this,
(10:32):
it's because I've been sick.
And I'm like, I wonder if my, you know, I hope that this is okay.
I hope it's not like X, Y, Z. And I hope it's just like something that I was like, Lauren, stop.
Like, there's absolutely, you're fine.
This is not, you are not living a life or death scenario. Your stomach hurts.
That's all. This is not, the stakes, it ain't that big.
So I have to, I'm not that much of a worrier, but I do have to talk myself down
(10:55):
for the ledge every once in a while.
Well, I have had a period of my life where not being a worrier and being positive became toxic.
You can take positivity to a point that it allows you to hide and not take action.
So I had toxic positivity and that I,
you know, marriage related, but that I did not take action at a point when I
(11:20):
probably should have because I just put my head down and found the good in everything
in order to avoid the bad that needed to be addressed.
So I think, you know, you can't probably take it too far. I do.
I think, well, I mean, I don't know.
But being positive and the fake it till you make it.
(11:42):
I love the idea of dressing for success.
You know, on the days when I don't put 100% into getting ready for work and
going, I swear those are the days that I see every important person at work.
Every single one. If I have my hair in a ponytail, I can almost guarantee you
I will see everyone from the superintendent down, everybody.
(12:04):
I'll see everybody. you know so it's just you
thinking it you know taking that extra few minutes to dress a way that I feel
confident really goes a long way I think and it's only 10 more minutes of my
warning well I think on that note too you know a big sports person I grew up
doing sports and there is a whole.
(12:27):
Field of sports psychology out there and I learned it as a very young person
my dad was was a great coach and he always said visualize yourself being successful visualize yourself,
making shot visualize yourself breaking the
full court press visualize yourself rebounding visualize
(12:48):
yourself scoring however many points
you either scoring again we taught that also goes for when
i went out for jobs that you know i'm an
older lady i did not grow up with computers i can
manage them just fine when I went for my
interview for this job I said I have no
problem doing the nursing part as long as you teach me
(13:10):
the computer part and I'm sure I can pick it up I had to
visualize myself putting in my billing hours and being comfortable like doing
it like literally I visualize myself humming while I was doing it like you know
like the little yeah blue bird of They have happiness in Snow White where they're
flying over after our Cinderella.
(13:31):
Yeah. This is a performance technique to like where you like,
if you know, if you know where your audition is going to be for a play or anything.
Go go to the space if you can and so that you
feel like you've already done it or like if you know you have a performance again
go to the space i mean it's why you have dress rehearsals but like
(13:51):
if you visualize yourself already performing it you'll feel like you
already did same thing when you're doing an actual performance to walk your
space beforehand just so it seems like you've already done it well because then
you have like all this and we all kind of confidence we've all kind of done
that in therapy there's a reason why you write down where you see yourself Yeah,
(14:13):
how you visualize your partner,
how you visualize your life being one of the biggest things that I did because
I stayed in the marital home that had not so happy memories.
You know, we talked about redoing our spaces. That is visualizing your house
(14:34):
as your nest, not the marital nest, not associated with that divorce.
Divorce, visualizing yourself, how you're going to use the space,
visualizing yourself as successful coming home after work.
And this is a space I enter. All those little things are sort of the fake it till you make it.
(14:55):
You're projecting what you want to see.
And you don't want to see yourself crying in the shower. Right.
In five years, you want to see yourself with a beautiful bathroom,
Bathroom with fresh flowers with, you know, and feeling comfortable in there
and coming home after a long day of work and feeling comfortable.
You want to see yourself at work as being successful. You want to see yourself,
(15:19):
you know, doing a play being successful or playing tennis and being successful
or losing weight or whatever.
We use all those techniques all the time.
We just don't phrase it as fake it till you make it. But that's actually what
you're doing. You're practicing.
Putting yourself in a happy place thinking of
things that make you happy and then doing those
(15:42):
little things it doesn't have to even be anything big well
i think that's why rearranging the furniture in my house sometimes really helps
me so if i feel like i've been in a funk it felt in this one right now i'm really
itching to rearrange my studio because i feel like i need a push in my art room
but there's just no way to rearrange yeah i'm just gonna have to put different things out, I guess.
(16:03):
But yeah, but when I rearrange, I'll rearrange my bedroom. I rearranged the,
my living room recently.
It just, it changes the atmosphere in my house.
And it's like, okay, this, this arrangement will now, because I'm a very visual
person, signify this era in my life.
And this era in my life is going to be the best yet. And I will remember it
as when I go back and think about it, of the furniture being placed in this way,
(16:26):
when I'm thinking about about my kids being home and this
that and the other you know it's just the furniture in my
room being painted different colors of whatever so i
think it's such a small thing but it
it really changed it's like spring for my mind you know it's like creating a
spring and as a visual person myself i don't know how non-visual very concrete
(16:47):
thinkers do this because well i don't have any experience doing that but when
you were what struck me when you were saying that that you're or moving things around.
It's sort of what my therapist said about shifting your perspective.
When you do a drawing, you know, there are perspective drawings that you can
do from different angles.
If you move, the building looks different from different angles.
(17:08):
I think if you can do that with your life circumstance, look at it from a different
angle, even if it is just something in your room,
sitting in a different chair when you you do your studying or reading or,
you know, just having a different perspective that kind of opens your mind and
helps you get to a more positive space.
(17:31):
I think feng shui-ing it, clearing the air, creating a different vibe and different,
you bring different energy when you're happy than when you're sad.
And if you want to attract happiness or manifest something,
you have to think on it that way, like you
already have it looks like manifesting yeah
(17:51):
so and that's so I like
to think when I start getting down about being my
age empty nest and not having
a partner I think about my grandmother who met the second love of her life in
her 80s and they got married and lived a beautiful life for he I don't know
(18:13):
however long before he passed away and about how happy they They were in just
the cutest little old couple.
And I'm like, you know, I may end up being a cute little old couple. I don't know.
Or I may not, but it doesn't. But I think I can think about her as an example.
She was always happy and positive my whole life. And I can sort of channel that.
(18:33):
I think there's a lot to be said for just trying to adjust your attitude and
how you think about things.
Because every single one of us can get mired down in just life circumstances,
not necessarily divorce or death, big ones, but little ones.
We pre-gamed with a conversation I had on the way home from work that kind of
(18:55):
had me a little confused, scratching my head, and then kind of made me mad.
Yeah I was a little perturbed at myself for just accepting the status quo and
it reminded me of my I have a little painted saying on my wall that says refuse to be average.
(19:18):
So I'm always trying not to just be average to be happy and be happy in my weirdness
I've always been the weird artsy chick. Me too.
I've always wanted to be the weird artsy chick and have rarely ever had the guts to be her. Bonnie.
Oh my goodness, Bonnie. You are the weird artsy chick.
(19:41):
We're sitting right now. We're sitting in Bonnie's silver-leafed room.
Yeah, no, she's not the weird artsy chick.
Do you think I'm weird and artsy? Yes. You're weird and artsy.
No, that's always been me. And so I struggled. I feel like I struggled for a
(20:01):
long time. I'm talking about denial next time.
I closed plenty of friends until I got to college because of that.
Like my crew or my group or whatever.
Well, and I have a story on that, too. I always felt like that.
And I have two kids that are weird, oddball, not the popular kids.
I mean, they're nice-looking. Mine's on his way. Mine's on his way.
And they're very verbal.
(20:22):
And they're used to being with adults. they can carry on conversations but when
my son was in fifth grade he got picked to go to,
the wake forest which is like duke tip program it's the science thing and so
i was like sure we can go so i took him up there you know they're in fifth grade
(20:42):
they check into a college dorm,
and are basically given instructions like this
is your class you have to be here at this time this is
your roommate this is your suite mates unpack here's
the key to your room and the mess hall is you know way over there for your food
and they have to navigate that and then they had to pick subjects like medicine
(21:05):
architecture whatever and they study it and so the first night he called me and I said,
how's it going? He said, mom.
Who knew there are other weird, brainy kids in the world? And I said,
buddy, we live in a small town.
There's not that many there. I promise you in the world, there are other people like you.
(21:29):
And so it kind of, it was very accepting to him that he can be a part of something.
He wasn't just the one lone kid out there that, you know, was thinking these big thoughts.
There were other kids just like just like that's like
when i first went to stitch camp yeah as an adult at calloway gardens i wasn't
(21:52):
even 30 and i went over there with a friend and i was like there were 2 000
stitchers who are just as crazy about needlework as i am and i was like i found I'm going to try.
Embrace the weirdness. That actually brings out another small point about being
(22:16):
positive or that's not what we called it, faking it until you make it,
whatever, is that when you are on the sunny side of things,
you attract more people like you. Yeah, that's true.
Because I think that negativity and sadness sort of build a bubble around you.
Well, they put off a different vibe, right? Yeah. It's hard to broach.
(22:39):
So I think even if you're feeling absolutely terrible about yourself,
faking it till you make it will bring you those people you need to pull out.
And this is not, I don't mean attractiveness in a romantic way.
I mean attractiveness in terms of, oh, that's a cool human that I'd like to.
People respond to confidence and fun.
(23:00):
And I mean, people do not want to be around complaints.
Or what did you just say? Negativity, sadness, like, and not that you can't
feel sad. Right, or feel negative.
But when you feel sad, your desire should be wanting to not be sad, you know? Right, right.
And I mean, there are many times that everybody has to have a moment of sadness.
(23:21):
You crawl into the bathtub, you do whatever you need to do, but then you emerge
and you can't dwell on it.
Because you have to participate in life and life is not made up of sex.
That's one of the reasons that you don't root for characters.
Like if we're talking about plays or film, you don't root for characters who've given up.
And when you start to dwell in that stuff, the audience loses empathy.
(23:43):
The same thing happens with... Because that's human nature. It's human nature.
If somebody's given up, you're not going to.
So if you're trying to build your tribe, it's not a negative thing.
If you're stuck in that pit and you need a tribe, faking it till you make it
may be what helps you get out of it a thousand times quicker.
(24:05):
Yeah, because you'll attract different.
Well, you'll find people to help because once you find that one positive friend
who says, oh, hey, good to see you. You want to go to lunch or whatever?
All of a sudden, you're like 10 times more out of it. every
little thing going back to what we were talking about a second ago and you said you'd
felt like you'd never been the weird art that you wanted no i've
always been her i've just never felt comfortable outing
(24:27):
myself as her oh that's what you're saying yeah i
guess that makes sense i've always been her i've just never felt
comfortable letting people know that's who i am i got you okay that's different
well i'm pretty sure people know that i'm weird since i walked to the neighborhood
with the needlepoint bag but i mean i could be okay i'm sorry you're all you're
It does not say needlepoint. It says alligator football.
(24:50):
As far as they know, you've got a football in there. You've got a football fetish.
Or a football player. That's your marriage.
What's that mean? There's a happy
dog. There's a happy dog. We've got a football team in our little bag.
Let me just pull them out. Talk about manifesting. There you go.
(25:12):
Well, see, my bag, it makes me happy.
No, you can.
Oh, Bonnie just reminded me that I listened to a book and it is related to this.
So I listened to not a ton of, but when I listen to books, I tend to listen
to nonfiction and sometimes it's memoirs and sometimes it's like how to find
a how to is your self-help or whatever you want to call it.
(25:34):
So I found this one that I like to quote from.
So I listened to the whole thing and it was really short. It's called How to
Keep House While Drowning. and it's written for neurodivergent people because
the person who wrote it is neurodivergent. She has ADHD.
And so the chapters are super short.
She's even like, is this too much for you? You can skip to this chapter if this is what you need.
(25:59):
But it's basically like, it's not just about cleaning up. It's about basic things
like cooking or about exercise.
And essentially, the overall theme is you do what you can.
You do a little bit at a time. Like, okay, you can't spend the whole day cleaning
the house today because you're depressed or because you have kids that you have
(26:21):
to take care of or because you've got three jobs or whatever it is.
But what you can do, what can you do in two minutes? You know,
what are the top priorities that you need to do to function well for you?
And that's it's i mean she even she uses this basket method
where she realized she was leaving like stuff
in the corner of the same room a lot so she stuck a basket there
(26:42):
and she would just throw it in there and and she has like a a cleanup method
for neurodivergent people so that you can do it quickly like anyway but it's
it's essentially she wrote it because after she had kids actually she had two
young kids during covid just like all like came crashing down what the i'm laughing Because okay,
this is a sign we're supposed to talk about this. Okay.
(27:03):
I saw a meme today that said if you want to be happier Stop reading self-help books No, it actually.
When I read it I was like,
there you go but like last week my goal because I was on spring break and I
(27:23):
was like all right there's some cleaning out that I need to do well my week
took a turn between two stomach bugs,
I had to go into work a couple of times for various reasons church
stuff like there were several things and so my week
did not go exactly how I thought it would and I really
only got to focus on one room in my house at over
break but I did it I focused on that room and I got everything done
(27:45):
that I wanted to do and I did I was like all right going forward
now when I don't have that chunk of
time off I'm gonna do a drawer today like okay
I'm sipping my coffee I'm gonna you know here's this bag of clothes I'll take
it to well you know I'm the typical ADD person do you know oh you know what
I've got it clean today y'all were coming over well there's one thing she says
(28:11):
us in the book, and this might be helpful too,
and it goes back to fake it till you make it.
Because you're not always going to do things perfectly. You just aren't.
And I feel like we talked a lot about expectations and living up to that.
You can't. There's some scenarios in your life where you can't.
My life is fantastic.
I love my life. I have a great house.
I am a single woman. I have a wonderful partner who I love very much. I have a great kid.
(28:36):
But within all that, that I'm a single mom and I have two jobs and approaching
a third on and off to make sure that I can keep those things going.
And that takes a lot of juggling, right?
So right now, am I going to do my very best at home life?
Probably not, but I'm going to do my best that I can.
And so one of the things she said was, you know, you're not,
(29:00):
if you've got those bags of donations that you mean to take,
that you keep me to take or keep me to sell.
And she says the book, she says, Because imagine I am holding your precious
face in my hands and looking into your eyes and saying,
Throw it away.
She said, I'm not a proponent of this all the time.
But if you are in any kind of survival mode, give yourself a break and throw it away.
(29:26):
Like, just get rid of it. You know, give yourself a break.
Actually, in our neighborhood, Lauren, all you have to do is put it behind the
fence. And then the owl rats will come pick it up. Yeah. No,
that's true. We have people in control of the owl.
Well, I am past a little bit of those things. Like, I was in that mode.
Yeah in that mode a year and a half ago I'm a little bit
past that like I'll actually take the bags to my car and
(29:48):
take them to the place well nice and of course you would understand this
so we cleaned out my kids room and so now all of
the stuff that needs something we need to do something with is now sitting in
the upstairs den and I'm like okay I'll get to that at some point but I have
I've just ignored it yeah for a week two weeks now so I mean I'll eventually
get to it I'll figure out do we throw it away do we give it away what do we
do it yeah but I have a space that I can ignore it. Yeah.
(30:12):
I have that. I have a storage closet upstairs that probably 75% of the stuff needs to go.
Yes. But you have to have that moment. I just need the time to go through it.
Like, we got through that.
It was so draining to get through all of the cleaning out that we're both like,
I'm pretending that's not there. But here's the thing, and this goes back to choosing happiness.
Even last week, and I can't remember what the fun, something fun emerged.
(30:34):
I can't remember what it was, but there was something that like somebody called me or like.
Was it us going out to dinner? Did we go out to dinner? No, it wasn't last week.
But if there's something that takes precedence and like if a friend calls me
and says, I want to go out. Yeah. If I don't have anything going on.
Yeah. I'm not going to choose cleaning out a room over having a human connection. I'm just not.
(30:56):
Well, but that's. I don't do that. So today I was looking through different
things. We were trying to figure out. I was just like, what to talk about.
And one of the things that people on their deathbeds talk about is,
I wish I'd spent more time with my people and not cleaning the house.
Yeah. I wish I had not worked as much as I did. I'd spent more time with my
family. Like human connection and relationships.
(31:18):
That is the basis of life. And at the end of it is what we're going to cherish.
Right. Not my house was clean. and I took the donations on time.
That's not ever going to register to me. And also, that's what feeds your soul
and makes you happy, spending time with your people. Yes. That is choosing happiness.
That's true. I've gotten to an accepted point, accepting point that like,
(31:40):
my house isn't spotless, but it's tidy. You know, I do the dishes every day.
I make sure laundry is done. My house looks tight. It doesn't look messy. Almost ever.
This is huge for me. That took me a long time to get. Well, my house does look messy.
But is my house spotless
in the corners like never ever and it's not going to be maybe sometime in my
(32:03):
life this is not the moment for that I've accepted that but I keep the clothes
successful artists with art and galleries in every state I can hire a maid and
like the other thing is you have priorities and that's okay but choosing,
one thing over another prioritizes that thing again when you're.
(32:25):
When you're in that medium mode of just not survival, but even just like,
like I'm in, I'm in parenting, I'm busy.
Yeah. Busy. I'm in parenting little kid mode.
That is my biggest stressor. And it's a wonderful thing. I love parenting,
but that is my largest stressor other than money is parenting.
Like just knowing what to do. Am I doing enough?
(32:47):
Like we've talked about this a lot. Right. Well, and doing it on your own because you don't have,
you don't have have the a parenting partner right yeah
and that so that that's different to me it is yeah so but but so i i'm like
all right this is this is what is it this is fine this is how it's going to
be for now and maybe someday it'll be just a little bit better like yeah you
(33:08):
know well it'll just it'll just be different lauren sorry yeah it'll be.
But that's you know choose happiness i think a lot of those things go away i
can remember and i I think a lot of people newly divorced or newly in the grief cycle,
it's really easy to dwell on the negative. I don't have this.
(33:30):
I don't have two incomes. I don't have security. This is not what I planned. This is not my dream.
This is not how I wanted to raise my kids. I'll never be married for 50 years.
It's really easy. But if you can be grateful for one thing, like I was grateful
for the peace and quiet in my house at the first.
Then I was grateful that I could
afford some paint to redo my space then
(33:52):
I was grateful like it as it
grew it kind of the my gratefulness snowballed
and it made me happier and happier and happier to be in my space and I won't
say to be in my situation but in some days I was very happy in my situation
I could find really good things about being alone I could could find really
(34:14):
good things about being divorced.
I could find really good positive things about spending more time with my kids.
You know, there's always something that you can find. You know,
Oprah used to do the grateful, write down every day the three things that you're grateful for today.
And I think that is also slants you in. Choose to be happy because it's really
(34:39):
hard to be unhappy when you're being grateful for something.
Well, that's Rachel Hollis. Do y'all know her?
So she has a journal and she did this when she was first. She wrote Girl, Wash Your Face.
Yeah, yeah. And then a couple of books after. her so she writes three
things she's great and then she writes every goal that
she wants and she writes them as if she's already they've already happened i
(35:00):
am a successful artist i have art
hanging in this gallery this gallery you know i mean like whatever her
thing was whatever your thing would be she writes them as if they've already
happened her 10 things every day and then she goes on but
she does it every morning that that's a part of her thing is a
part of her and i think there's something to be said for
that so that is visualizing and that is yeah faking
(35:21):
it till you make it that is being open to
the possibility that yeah you can be happy and you can
be successful on this side of divorce grief whatever
you want to call it i mean well if you have to get it and it can get far enough
away for me and it's it's different because i can because i don't have a partner
anymore i don't have my ex-husband's not around anymore so So it's different
(35:45):
for me to be able to look at it and think,
because sometimes I get stuck in that my kids don't have their dad anymore.
Even if their dad was still going to be sick and not a great person,
not really participating in life like we'd all appreciate, at least he'd have been here.
So if you can get far enough away from that emotion with that ex-person and
(36:07):
just see things for what they actually are and what your kids still have,
whether it's, you know, is there there anything good?
Any one little teeny ounce of good things that somebody could bring out of what
their ex offers for their kid?
Because clearly they'll offer up positive things for us. But you know what I mean? That even that.
Yeah, I just think trying to get out of that poor pitiful me.
(36:32):
My life didn't turn out the way that I wanted it to.
I think a lot of people get stuck in that. You know, my kid the other day,
he said, and he'll do this once in a blue moon, but he said,
I wish that you and my daddy were still together.
And I said, well, why is that? He said, so I don't have to go back and forth.
And I said, well, honey, A, your dad lives two blocks away.
(36:57):
He literally lives down the street. That is a good thing. And eventually that'll
be a really good thing. And you'll be happy about that.
And I said, but also think about, I was kind of surprised at myself that I said
this, but I did. I said, but mommy and daddy didn't get along.
You know, that didn't happen. And I said, but also think about the people that
you wouldn't have in your life.
Wife you wouldn't have my you know
(37:19):
your relationship that you have with my partner or
with your dad's wife and you
wouldn't have a sister think about those things like sisterness so i i tried
to flip the script on that a little bit for him so that it was and he was satisfied
yeah he has different experiences yeah does different things i mean his world
is kind of but he was satisfied with that answer and he dropped he was like
(37:41):
yeah you're right yeah so So, I mean,
there's a little bit of pasta that you can find in all of that. So...
Anyway, well, what are you ladies doing this week to live a life that you love?
Well, it's Holy Week. It's Holy Week. So tomorrow, tomorrow.
We're all going to church. Tomorrow I take deep breath and start swimming.
(38:07):
As I'm sure you all know, I'll remind you that Lauren is the music director at her church.
What's your title is? Choir Master. Choir Master.
I'm sorry. If you're a praying person, pray for your clergy and all your church
musicians and all those people this week. Because it's a big one. They're playing.
It's arguably the busiest church week of the year. Well, yeah,
(38:29):
because you've got Maundy Thursday and then the Friday, which is the non-service service.
And then Easter Vigil. Holy Saturday. Holy Saturday. And then Easter Day.
Which I'm hoping to go.
I'm going to go to Easter Vigil so that I don't have to go on Easter Sunday.
Yeah. I'm doing all to
kill and my team is all in
(38:51):
for this whole weekend I love
I enjoy being up there and I love setting the table and getting everything arranged
and the flowers at our church are over the top so it's going to be beautiful
and it's going to be beautiful do y'all cover all of your statues right now and all of that,
(39:12):
we don't have statues Statues that it's Maundy Thursday, they'll strip the altar
and everything's covered and they throw black on the crosses.
Yeah. So all of the statues will be.
Yeah. But you don't agree.
Over the top. I can't wait to see it. And I love the flowering of the cross. Yes.
You know, I'm a high church person. Yes. Which I love to have again since I
(39:37):
wish we did bells. I missed that from the Catholic church.
But anyway. Well, I do. I like the incense. Well, that's, yeah.
Well, that's. All right. I'll double enjoy the bells for you.
I don't like incense because it gives me some kind of attack. Well, do you know what?
Every time I smell the incense, it reminds me of when we went to the Middle
East. It smells like the Middle East.
(39:58):
Oh, yeah. Which I guess makes sense since you know Jesus was from the Middle
East. I mean, that makes a lot of sense to me now.
But anyway. So what are you doing? You're kidding me. I can't believe it. What?
Yeah. So, all right. So you are doing Holy Week. Is that the life that you love? You have Friday.
Yeah, I'll have, I'm just, I'm going to a dear friend's wedding on Saturday
(40:22):
as quickly as I can, because I've got to run back.
And then Sunday we are celebrating. So my stepfather and my father have the same birthday.
That's interesting. My stepfather's turning 70 and my father's turning 75 this
year. So we are having a party for my stepfather on Easter day.
So that'll be fun. That'll be a good time. Okay.
(40:44):
Well, you know, I'm an old church lady. So yeah, I love Easter and I love doing altar guild and.
I will be in my element. And unfortunately, my son is not coming home.
But my daughter and I will cook and, you know, do all the Easter things.
What do you make for Easter? Well, I'm doing ham this year. I'm doing ham and biscuits.
(41:07):
And I'm doing, I love this salad that I used to make.
It's a blanched asparagus and fresh blueberries on it.
And then they used to make this parents dressing. But the closest you can get
to it now is palm lemon, sesame, ginger.
And you put that on it and serve it cold. It is fabulous. It tastes like spring.
(41:31):
It's wonderful. I'm doing that. And then I think I'm going to do this new shaved carrot recipe.
It's kind of cool. And then I'm doing carrot cake. I went and got coconut and
all that. I just doll it up. It's great. Okay.
Well, I'm going to Easter Vigil on Saturday night, so I do love the Easter Vigil Catholic service.
It is my favorite service of the year, even though it's the longest one.
(41:56):
I just, I don't know. There's just something so reverent about it. So I enjoy doing that.
And then Sunday, going over to my mother's house, I'm taking a sweet hash brown
casserole and get to hang out with my two of my kids cannot come home.
So I will not get to see them, but I'll get to see my sister's children and
my mom and my dad and their significant others.
(42:16):
So my son will be, my middle kid will be there with me, so that'll be nice. That'll be good.
That's that. Sounds good. Alright, well, ladies, Beth quit stitching long enough to do this. Cheers.
Cheers. Cheers and happiness.
Happiness and stitching and sipping. Thank y'all for joining us for Champagne Sunday.
(42:41):
See you next week, girls. See you next week.
Music.
Music.
(00:29):
Okay, ladies, today we're going to talk about choosing happiness,
just kind of as a way of life.
You know, just especially on the other side, or we were in a down and a funk,
just the choice of choosing happiness.
And I think, Lauren, you watched something or listened to something.
Yeah, so I'm a, this is not a plug and I'm not being paid for this,
but I love the Today Show.
(00:50):
I love to drink my coffee and watch the Today Show. and I was watching it this
morning and Hoda Kotb has a podcast called Making Space and she'd had this guest on.
His name is Arthur Brooks. He's a professor of business at Harvard and I think
he's written a book on choosing happiness, but I need to know more about that.
(01:12):
I also haven't listened to the podcast yet. I need to do that.
So they were playing a clip of the podcast and Hoda was talking about how she
tells her kids, sometimes you can choose happiness.
This like that that it can be a choice a lot
of the time and he said yeah you have to act like you
want to feel and I wrote that down immediately because
so many times we can get bogged down
(01:35):
in things and feeling tired or or sad or depressed or dissatisfied even like
or even one conversation can put you off yeah and if you don't want to feel
that like just figure out what you do how how you do want to feel and get there.
Like, and I, I have, my therapist says fake it till you make it all the time.
(01:57):
Like I already going through a whole thing with her about that,
but whether that means like, you know, what's going to make me feel happy right
now, go like, is that watching my favorite movie?
Is that going for a walk? Is that like, whatever's going to make you feel happy?
Or if you want to, if you're not feeling very attractive, okay.
What makes you feel attractive?
Your favorite dress, red lipstick, you know, lingerie, like,
(02:18):
what is it? What's It's going to make you feel good. Go in and do that.
And eventually, and he said in the brief bit of the podcast that I saw,
that eventually you start to, you trick your brain and you start to actually get there.
I mean, it's like a shortcut.
That's how I felt it. Yeah. So just the act of choosing to be happy,
(02:41):
which is something I've told my kids. I'll get stuck in one of those.
They're depressed or angry or just having a
come apart whatever and i remember saying but you can choose
to be happy you can change this of course when you're kids i mean they're that's
hard for them to grow the concept but really yeah yeah oh i definitely think
(03:03):
you can choose i think you can choose i you said in some situations i think
you can choose to be happy.
In pretty much all situations. Most, I would say most. You can be happy.
Most situations, unless you're like, I don't know, you're a medical person and
I'm not, but like, unless you're like clinically depressed, right?
But I think you can find a little bit of joy in something, even if you are terminally
(03:29):
ill or if you are, you know, have just buried somebody.
You know, that's what funerals are for, to see the good part of the person and
talk about the good times. and that kind of smooths those edges to get you through.
Okay. I had a terrible conversation today and I walked in here in a terrible
runaway, but I brought my stitching with me and that is a self-soothing and it makes me very happy.
(03:55):
So that's what I have chosen to be happy today at the end of the day.
Well, I've talked on other podcasts. My sister and I call that Pollyanna.
How can we Pollyanna this? What is it that we need to Pollyanna about this?
And I think that there's a lot to be said for being optimistic,
(04:16):
for looking at, you know, just sort of a pile of.
And saying, okay, what's good? Is there anything good we can pick out of this?
You know? I do that. Yeah. I do that because it's, and part of it's my personality type.
I don't like to feel pain. Oh, I don't either. Or upset.
I hate that feeling. So I will try to figure out how to feel good in pretty
(04:39):
much any, like my, I found out yesterday, my college is closing.
My, where I went to undergrad is closing and we've all been pretty broken up about it.
But I'm trying not to think about it too much and my friend texted me today
and he said it feels like somebody died and I said no I know it does and that's
why I'm compartmentalizing and trying not to think about this too much what
a blessing for the memories that you have of going there yeah.
(05:04):
That's a blessing yeah there's a lot of good memories with that but even that
I'm like okay if I think on this too much it's going to take me to a place that
I want to be so I'm going to you know,
do things that make me feel good good that's old
old wisdom is look for the silver lining
yeah and you can pretty much
(05:26):
find something good in almost every situation
i mean well i think it's also a lot you've got that over your lauren in your
kitchen over your window to be a goldfish the ted lasso thing yeah i think i
have i'm a goldfish a lot i think just in my general nature i don't hang on
to the bad things i tend tend to forget the way I've been treated in a lot of ways.
(05:48):
I, when I love, I over love and I will love it.
You know what I mean? Like I just, I don't, I don't hold things against the
people that I really love.
You know what I mean? It just, now I will protect myself if I have to,
but you know what I mean? But being a goldfish, I think is a part of that too.
And that if you're a gold, do his whole thing, you're not dwelling.
Yeah. You're not on the negative or the bad aspects. You're pulling whatever
(06:12):
was good and moving on. and at that point, it's in the past. Yeah.
By dwelling on whatever that bad feeling is you're having, you're affecting your future.
And life is short, so you don't want to spend, I mean, why would you waste your
time feeling yucky if it's a choice, you know, or if you can choose something better?
(06:34):
You know, and I remember being a teenager and sort of dwelling in that space
of sadness and melancholy and all of that. But I don't want that.
It's almost like I was exploring it. Yeah, drama.
But now I have now lived through enough
drama of actual provided by
(06:57):
life drama that I could not avoid I'm not interested in participating in that
if I don't have to you know and I think we've talked about this before is that
there's some there are some people that are so upset about about such small
little things in their lives.
(07:17):
And I can look at them now and think, wow, what a blessed life they must have.
Because that is the reaction of someone who has not gone through any sort of trauma.
Yeah. That something so small can seem so big.
I mean, maybe that's not right. I have no science to back that up.
But it seems to me that in this point in my life, after everything,
(07:38):
I'm not, I would rather be on the sunny side of things.
I would do not want to dwell on that. That's sort of that. Don't sweat the small stuff.
And life is the small. Look, we're hitting all the cliches. We are.
Cliched. It's six in one. Not the other.
So my daughter, she gets very, she's in college and gets very bogged down in
(08:02):
everything that she has to do in her list.
And, you know, I hate to tell her that her list will only grow as she gets older.
But, you know, she has an essay due and she starts talking about this,
that, and the other. And I'm like, wait, wait, wait. wait, that's next week's problem.
She's like, yeah. And I was like, we're going to have to Scarlett O'Hara that.
That is a problem for another day. And I know that that is not a movie everybody,
you know, it's not necessarily. That's also a biblical thing.
(08:25):
You don't borrow trouble.
You're not borrowing trouble. Do not worry for today.
Tomorrow has it. I was like, you know, we're not, we cannot lump all of your
upset and anxiety into today.
There's some things you're going to have to filter out. And that's going to
be a next week thing. And anxiety and worry and all of that is so easy to feel.
(08:46):
But really, all of that is just fear manifesting itself.
And fear's not... There's a quote...
We just did the play Tick, Tick, Boom. Oh, I loved it. It was fabulous.
It was so good. And there's this quote that one of the, it's all about the lead
character's like anxiety about not being where he wants to be in his career and in life.
(09:07):
And I mean, just every, it's about all of his fears, essentially.
And he's going to give up his dream, essentially. And his best friend says to
him, this is your fear talking.
And you just have to thank your brain for sharing that fear and get on with it.
Like move on because it's not it
isn't real you know just because your brain manifests it
(09:29):
doesn't mean that it's yet of being afraid is
just a feeling you know well that's what is
it is it and it may be biblical y'all may can tell me
or not that worry is basically from the devil yeah
that it is his way that worry does has
no productive end there is nothing that
comes from worry that is helpful no there
(09:51):
it does nothing but rob you of any peace
that you could have or that would help
you move towards a solution about whatever it is certainly keeps you from living
in the moment yeah worrying about it but all of that energy you put into the
worry if it truly is a big problem that needs to be solved all of that energy
(10:11):
you're putting into worry worry should be channeled into solving the problem.
Or, you know, or preparing against the problem or whatever it is.
But the worry is, it's like robbing you of that forward momentum.
That's true. I, anytime that, anytime something like that, I had a little bit
of this earlier today, just like a, I was like, I wonder if this,
(10:32):
it's because I've been sick.
And I'm like, I wonder if my, you know, I hope that this is okay.
I hope it's not like X, Y, Z. And I hope it's just like something that I was like, Lauren, stop.
Like, there's absolutely, you're fine.
This is not, you are not living a life or death scenario. Your stomach hurts.
That's all. This is not, the stakes, it ain't that big.
So I have to, I'm not that much of a worrier, but I do have to talk myself down
(10:55):
for the ledge every once in a while.
Well, I have had a period of my life where not being a worrier and being positive became toxic.
You can take positivity to a point that it allows you to hide and not take action.
So I had toxic positivity and that I,
you know, marriage related, but that I did not take action at a point when I
(11:20):
probably should have because I just put my head down and found the good in everything
in order to avoid the bad that needed to be addressed.
So I think, you know, you can't probably take it too far. I do.
I think, well, I mean, I don't know.
But being positive and the fake it till you make it.
(11:42):
I love the idea of dressing for success.
You know, on the days when I don't put 100% into getting ready for work and
going, I swear those are the days that I see every important person at work.
Every single one. If I have my hair in a ponytail, I can almost guarantee you
I will see everyone from the superintendent down, everybody.
(12:04):
I'll see everybody. you know so it's just you
thinking it you know taking that extra few minutes to dress a way that I feel
confident really goes a long way I think and it's only 10 more minutes of my
warning well I think on that note too you know a big sports person I grew up
doing sports and there is a whole.
(12:27):
Field of sports psychology out there and I learned it as a very young person
my dad was was a great coach and he always said visualize yourself being successful visualize yourself,
making shot visualize yourself breaking the
full court press visualize yourself rebounding visualize
(12:48):
yourself scoring however many points
you either scoring again we taught that also goes for when
i went out for jobs that you know i'm an
older lady i did not grow up with computers i can
manage them just fine when I went for my
interview for this job I said I have no
problem doing the nursing part as long as you teach me
(13:10):
the computer part and I'm sure I can pick it up I had to
visualize myself putting in my billing hours and being comfortable like doing
it like literally I visualize myself humming while I was doing it like you know
like the little yeah blue bird of They have happiness in Snow White where they're
flying over after our Cinderella.
(13:31):
Yeah. This is a performance technique to like where you like,
if you know, if you know where your audition is going to be for a play or anything.
Go go to the space if you can and so that you
feel like you've already done it or like if you know you have a performance again
go to the space i mean it's why you have dress rehearsals but like
(13:51):
if you visualize yourself already performing it you'll feel like you
already did same thing when you're doing an actual performance to walk your
space beforehand just so it seems like you've already done it well because then
you have like all this and we all kind of confidence we've all kind of done
that in therapy there's a reason why you write down where you see yourself Yeah,
(14:13):
how you visualize your partner,
how you visualize your life being one of the biggest things that I did because
I stayed in the marital home that had not so happy memories.
You know, we talked about redoing our spaces. That is visualizing your house
(14:34):
as your nest, not the marital nest, not associated with that divorce.
Divorce, visualizing yourself, how you're going to use the space,
visualizing yourself as successful coming home after work.
And this is a space I enter. All those little things are sort of the fake it till you make it.
(14:55):
You're projecting what you want to see.
And you don't want to see yourself crying in the shower. Right.
In five years, you want to see yourself with a beautiful bathroom,
Bathroom with fresh flowers with, you know, and feeling comfortable in there
and coming home after a long day of work and feeling comfortable.
You want to see yourself at work as being successful. You want to see yourself,
(15:19):
you know, doing a play being successful or playing tennis and being successful
or losing weight or whatever.
We use all those techniques all the time.
We just don't phrase it as fake it till you make it. But that's actually what
you're doing. You're practicing.
Putting yourself in a happy place thinking of
things that make you happy and then doing those
(15:42):
little things it doesn't have to even be anything big well
i think that's why rearranging the furniture in my house sometimes really helps
me so if i feel like i've been in a funk it felt in this one right now i'm really
itching to rearrange my studio because i feel like i need a push in my art room
but there's just no way to rearrange yeah i'm just gonna have to put different things out, I guess.
(16:03):
But yeah, but when I rearrange, I'll rearrange my bedroom. I rearranged the,
my living room recently.
It just, it changes the atmosphere in my house.
And it's like, okay, this, this arrangement will now, because I'm a very visual
person, signify this era in my life.
And this era in my life is going to be the best yet. And I will remember it
as when I go back and think about it, of the furniture being placed in this way,
(16:26):
when I'm thinking about about my kids being home and this
that and the other you know it's just the furniture in my
room being painted different colors of whatever so i
think it's such a small thing but it
it really changed it's like spring for my mind you know it's like creating a
spring and as a visual person myself i don't know how non-visual very concrete
(16:47):
thinkers do this because well i don't have any experience doing that but when
you were what struck me when you were saying that that you're or moving things around.
It's sort of what my therapist said about shifting your perspective.
When you do a drawing, you know, there are perspective drawings that you can
do from different angles.
If you move, the building looks different from different angles.
(17:08):
I think if you can do that with your life circumstance, look at it from a different
angle, even if it is just something in your room,
sitting in a different chair when you you do your studying or reading or,
you know, just having a different perspective that kind of opens your mind and
helps you get to a more positive space.
(17:31):
I think feng shui-ing it, clearing the air, creating a different vibe and different,
you bring different energy when you're happy than when you're sad.
And if you want to attract happiness or manifest something,
you have to think on it that way, like you
already have it looks like manifesting yeah
(17:51):
so and that's so I like
to think when I start getting down about being my
age empty nest and not having
a partner I think about my grandmother who met the second love of her life in
her 80s and they got married and lived a beautiful life for he I don't know
(18:13):
however long before he passed away and about how happy they They were in just
the cutest little old couple.
And I'm like, you know, I may end up being a cute little old couple. I don't know.
Or I may not, but it doesn't. But I think I can think about her as an example.
She was always happy and positive my whole life. And I can sort of channel that.
(18:33):
I think there's a lot to be said for just trying to adjust your attitude and
how you think about things.
Because every single one of us can get mired down in just life circumstances,
not necessarily divorce or death, big ones, but little ones.
We pre-gamed with a conversation I had on the way home from work that kind of
(18:55):
had me a little confused, scratching my head, and then kind of made me mad.
Yeah I was a little perturbed at myself for just accepting the status quo and
it reminded me of my I have a little painted saying on my wall that says refuse to be average.
(19:18):
So I'm always trying not to just be average to be happy and be happy in my weirdness
I've always been the weird artsy chick. Me too.
I've always wanted to be the weird artsy chick and have rarely ever had the guts to be her. Bonnie.
Oh my goodness, Bonnie. You are the weird artsy chick.
(19:41):
We're sitting right now. We're sitting in Bonnie's silver-leafed room.
Yeah, no, she's not the weird artsy chick.
Do you think I'm weird and artsy? Yes. You're weird and artsy.
No, that's always been me. And so I struggled. I feel like I struggled for a
(20:01):
long time. I'm talking about denial next time.
I closed plenty of friends until I got to college because of that.
Like my crew or my group or whatever.
Well, and I have a story on that, too. I always felt like that.
And I have two kids that are weird, oddball, not the popular kids.
I mean, they're nice-looking. Mine's on his way. Mine's on his way.
And they're very verbal.
(20:22):
And they're used to being with adults. they can carry on conversations but when
my son was in fifth grade he got picked to go to,
the wake forest which is like duke tip program it's the science thing and so
i was like sure we can go so i took him up there you know they're in fifth grade
(20:42):
they check into a college dorm,
and are basically given instructions like this
is your class you have to be here at this time this is
your roommate this is your suite mates unpack here's
the key to your room and the mess hall is you know way over there for your food
and they have to navigate that and then they had to pick subjects like medicine
(21:05):
architecture whatever and they study it and so the first night he called me and I said,
how's it going? He said, mom.
Who knew there are other weird, brainy kids in the world? And I said,
buddy, we live in a small town.
There's not that many there. I promise you in the world, there are other people like you.
(21:29):
And so it kind of, it was very accepting to him that he can be a part of something.
He wasn't just the one lone kid out there that, you know, was thinking these big thoughts.
There were other kids just like just like that's like
when i first went to stitch camp yeah as an adult at calloway gardens i wasn't
(21:52):
even 30 and i went over there with a friend and i was like there were 2 000
stitchers who are just as crazy about needlework as i am and i was like i found I'm going to try.
Embrace the weirdness. That actually brings out another small point about being
(22:16):
positive or that's not what we called it, faking it until you make it,
whatever, is that when you are on the sunny side of things,
you attract more people like you. Yeah, that's true.
Because I think that negativity and sadness sort of build a bubble around you.
Well, they put off a different vibe, right? Yeah. It's hard to broach.
(22:39):
So I think even if you're feeling absolutely terrible about yourself,
faking it till you make it will bring you those people you need to pull out.
And this is not, I don't mean attractiveness in a romantic way.
I mean attractiveness in terms of, oh, that's a cool human that I'd like to.
People respond to confidence and fun.
(23:00):
And I mean, people do not want to be around complaints.
Or what did you just say? Negativity, sadness, like, and not that you can't
feel sad. Right, or feel negative.
But when you feel sad, your desire should be wanting to not be sad, you know? Right, right.
And I mean, there are many times that everybody has to have a moment of sadness.
(23:21):
You crawl into the bathtub, you do whatever you need to do, but then you emerge
and you can't dwell on it.
Because you have to participate in life and life is not made up of sex.
That's one of the reasons that you don't root for characters.
Like if we're talking about plays or film, you don't root for characters who've given up.
And when you start to dwell in that stuff, the audience loses empathy.
(23:43):
The same thing happens with... Because that's human nature. It's human nature.
If somebody's given up, you're not going to.
So if you're trying to build your tribe, it's not a negative thing.
If you're stuck in that pit and you need a tribe, faking it till you make it
may be what helps you get out of it a thousand times quicker.
(24:05):
Yeah, because you'll attract different.
Well, you'll find people to help because once you find that one positive friend
who says, oh, hey, good to see you. You want to go to lunch or whatever?
All of a sudden, you're like 10 times more out of it. every
little thing going back to what we were talking about a second ago and you said you'd
felt like you'd never been the weird art that you wanted no i've
always been her i've just never felt comfortable outing
(24:27):
myself as her oh that's what you're saying yeah i
guess that makes sense i've always been her i've just never felt
comfortable letting people know that's who i am i got you okay that's different
well i'm pretty sure people know that i'm weird since i walked to the neighborhood
with the needlepoint bag but i mean i could be okay i'm sorry you're all you're
It does not say needlepoint. It says alligator football.
(24:50):
As far as they know, you've got a football in there. You've got a football fetish.
Or a football player. That's your marriage.
What's that mean? There's a happy
dog. There's a happy dog. We've got a football team in our little bag.
Let me just pull them out. Talk about manifesting. There you go.
(25:12):
Well, see, my bag, it makes me happy.
No, you can.
Oh, Bonnie just reminded me that I listened to a book and it is related to this.
So I listened to not a ton of, but when I listen to books, I tend to listen
to nonfiction and sometimes it's memoirs and sometimes it's like how to find
a how to is your self-help or whatever you want to call it.
(25:34):
So I found this one that I like to quote from.
So I listened to the whole thing and it was really short. It's called How to
Keep House While Drowning. and it's written for neurodivergent people because
the person who wrote it is neurodivergent. She has ADHD.
And so the chapters are super short.
She's even like, is this too much for you? You can skip to this chapter if this is what you need.
(25:59):
But it's basically like, it's not just about cleaning up. It's about basic things
like cooking or about exercise.
And essentially, the overall theme is you do what you can.
You do a little bit at a time. Like, okay, you can't spend the whole day cleaning
the house today because you're depressed or because you have kids that you have
(26:21):
to take care of or because you've got three jobs or whatever it is.
But what you can do, what can you do in two minutes? You know,
what are the top priorities that you need to do to function well for you?
And that's it's i mean she even she uses this basket method
where she realized she was leaving like stuff
in the corner of the same room a lot so she stuck a basket there
(26:42):
and she would just throw it in there and and she has like a a cleanup method
for neurodivergent people so that you can do it quickly like anyway but it's
it's essentially she wrote it because after she had kids actually she had two
young kids during covid just like all like came crashing down what the i'm laughing Because okay,
this is a sign we're supposed to talk about this. Okay.
(27:03):
I saw a meme today that said if you want to be happier Stop reading self-help books No, it actually.
When I read it I was like,
there you go but like last week my goal because I was on spring break and I
(27:23):
was like all right there's some cleaning out that I need to do well my week
took a turn between two stomach bugs,
I had to go into work a couple of times for various reasons church
stuff like there were several things and so my week
did not go exactly how I thought it would and I really
only got to focus on one room in my house at over
break but I did it I focused on that room and I got everything done
(27:45):
that I wanted to do and I did I was like all right going forward
now when I don't have that chunk of
time off I'm gonna do a drawer today like okay
I'm sipping my coffee I'm gonna you know here's this bag of clothes I'll take
it to well you know I'm the typical ADD person do you know oh you know what
I've got it clean today y'all were coming over well there's one thing she says
(28:11):
us in the book, and this might be helpful too,
and it goes back to fake it till you make it.
Because you're not always going to do things perfectly. You just aren't.
And I feel like we talked a lot about expectations and living up to that.
You can't. There's some scenarios in your life where you can't.
My life is fantastic.
I love my life. I have a great house.
I am a single woman. I have a wonderful partner who I love very much. I have a great kid.
(28:36):
But within all that, that I'm a single mom and I have two jobs and approaching
a third on and off to make sure that I can keep those things going.
And that takes a lot of juggling, right?
So right now, am I going to do my very best at home life?
Probably not, but I'm going to do my best that I can.
And so one of the things she said was, you know, you're not,
(29:00):
if you've got those bags of donations that you mean to take,
that you keep me to take or keep me to sell.
And she says the book, she says, Because imagine I am holding your precious
face in my hands and looking into your eyes and saying,
Throw it away.
She said, I'm not a proponent of this all the time.
But if you are in any kind of survival mode, give yourself a break and throw it away.
(29:26):
Like, just get rid of it. You know, give yourself a break.
Actually, in our neighborhood, Lauren, all you have to do is put it behind the
fence. And then the owl rats will come pick it up. Yeah. No,
that's true. We have people in control of the owl.
Well, I am past a little bit of those things. Like, I was in that mode.
Yeah in that mode a year and a half ago I'm a little bit
past that like I'll actually take the bags to my car and
(29:48):
take them to the place well nice and of course you would understand this
so we cleaned out my kids room and so now all of
the stuff that needs something we need to do something with is now sitting in
the upstairs den and I'm like okay I'll get to that at some point but I have
I've just ignored it yeah for a week two weeks now so I mean I'll eventually
get to it I'll figure out do we throw it away do we give it away what do we
do it yeah but I have a space that I can ignore it. Yeah.
(30:12):
I have that. I have a storage closet upstairs that probably 75% of the stuff needs to go.
Yes. But you have to have that moment. I just need the time to go through it.
Like, we got through that.
It was so draining to get through all of the cleaning out that we're both like,
I'm pretending that's not there. But here's the thing, and this goes back to choosing happiness.
Even last week, and I can't remember what the fun, something fun emerged.
(30:34):
I can't remember what it was, but there was something that like somebody called me or like.
Was it us going out to dinner? Did we go out to dinner? No, it wasn't last week.
But if there's something that takes precedence and like if a friend calls me
and says, I want to go out. Yeah. If I don't have anything going on.
Yeah. I'm not going to choose cleaning out a room over having a human connection. I'm just not.
(30:56):
Well, but that's. I don't do that. So today I was looking through different
things. We were trying to figure out. I was just like, what to talk about.
And one of the things that people on their deathbeds talk about is,
I wish I'd spent more time with my people and not cleaning the house.
Yeah. I wish I had not worked as much as I did. I'd spent more time with my
family. Like human connection and relationships.
(31:18):
That is the basis of life. And at the end of it is what we're going to cherish.
Right. Not my house was clean. and I took the donations on time.
That's not ever going to register to me. And also, that's what feeds your soul
and makes you happy, spending time with your people. Yes. That is choosing happiness.
That's true. I've gotten to an accepted point, accepting point that like,
(31:40):
my house isn't spotless, but it's tidy. You know, I do the dishes every day.
I make sure laundry is done. My house looks tight. It doesn't look messy. Almost ever.
This is huge for me. That took me a long time to get. Well, my house does look messy.
But is my house spotless
in the corners like never ever and it's not going to be maybe sometime in my
(32:03):
life this is not the moment for that I've accepted that but I keep the clothes
successful artists with art and galleries in every state I can hire a maid and
like the other thing is you have priorities and that's okay but choosing,
one thing over another prioritizes that thing again when you're.
(32:25):
When you're in that medium mode of just not survival, but even just like,
like I'm in, I'm in parenting, I'm busy.
Yeah. Busy. I'm in parenting little kid mode.
That is my biggest stressor. And it's a wonderful thing. I love parenting,
but that is my largest stressor other than money is parenting.
Like just knowing what to do. Am I doing enough?
(32:47):
Like we've talked about this a lot. Right. Well, and doing it on your own because you don't have,
you don't have have the a parenting partner right yeah
and that so that that's different to me it is yeah so but but so i i'm like
all right this is this is what is it this is fine this is how it's going to
be for now and maybe someday it'll be just a little bit better like yeah you
(33:08):
know well it'll just it'll just be different lauren sorry yeah it'll be.
But that's you know choose happiness i think a lot of those things go away i
can remember and i I think a lot of people newly divorced or newly in the grief cycle,
it's really easy to dwell on the negative. I don't have this.
(33:30):
I don't have two incomes. I don't have security. This is not what I planned. This is not my dream.
This is not how I wanted to raise my kids. I'll never be married for 50 years.
It's really easy. But if you can be grateful for one thing, like I was grateful
for the peace and quiet in my house at the first.
Then I was grateful that I could
afford some paint to redo my space then
(33:52):
I was grateful like it as it
grew it kind of the my gratefulness snowballed
and it made me happier and happier and happier to be in my space and I won't
say to be in my situation but in some days I was very happy in my situation
I could find really good things about being alone I could could find really
(34:14):
good things about being divorced.
I could find really good positive things about spending more time with my kids.
You know, there's always something that you can find. You know,
Oprah used to do the grateful, write down every day the three things that you're grateful for today.
And I think that is also slants you in. Choose to be happy because it's really
(34:39):
hard to be unhappy when you're being grateful for something.
Well, that's Rachel Hollis. Do y'all know her?
So she has a journal and she did this when she was first. She wrote Girl, Wash Your Face.
Yeah, yeah. And then a couple of books after. her so she writes three
things she's great and then she writes every goal that
she wants and she writes them as if she's already they've already happened i
(35:00):
am a successful artist i have art
hanging in this gallery this gallery you know i mean like whatever her
thing was whatever your thing would be she writes them as if they've already
happened her 10 things every day and then she goes on but
she does it every morning that that's a part of her thing is a
part of her and i think there's something to be said for
that so that is visualizing and that is yeah faking
(35:21):
it till you make it that is being open to
the possibility that yeah you can be happy and you can
be successful on this side of divorce grief whatever
you want to call it i mean well if you have to get it and it can get far enough
away for me and it's it's different because i can because i don't have a partner
anymore i don't have my ex-husband's not around anymore so So it's different
(35:45):
for me to be able to look at it and think,
because sometimes I get stuck in that my kids don't have their dad anymore.
Even if their dad was still going to be sick and not a great person,
not really participating in life like we'd all appreciate, at least he'd have been here.
So if you can get far enough away from that emotion with that ex-person and
(36:07):
just see things for what they actually are and what your kids still have,
whether it's, you know, is there there anything good?
Any one little teeny ounce of good things that somebody could bring out of what
their ex offers for their kid?
Because clearly they'll offer up positive things for us. But you know what I mean? That even that.
Yeah, I just think trying to get out of that poor pitiful me.
(36:32):
My life didn't turn out the way that I wanted it to.
I think a lot of people get stuck in that. You know, my kid the other day,
he said, and he'll do this once in a blue moon, but he said,
I wish that you and my daddy were still together.
And I said, well, why is that? He said, so I don't have to go back and forth.
And I said, well, honey, A, your dad lives two blocks away.
(36:57):
He literally lives down the street. That is a good thing. And eventually that'll
be a really good thing. And you'll be happy about that.
And I said, but also think about, I was kind of surprised at myself that I said
this, but I did. I said, but mommy and daddy didn't get along.
You know, that didn't happen. And I said, but also think about the people that
you wouldn't have in your life.
Wife you wouldn't have my you know
(37:19):
your relationship that you have with my partner or
with your dad's wife and you
wouldn't have a sister think about those things like sisterness so i i tried
to flip the script on that a little bit for him so that it was and he was satisfied
yeah he has different experiences yeah does different things i mean his world
is kind of but he was satisfied with that answer and he dropped he was like
(37:41):
yeah you're right yeah so So, I mean,
there's a little bit of pasta that you can find in all of that. So...
Anyway, well, what are you ladies doing this week to live a life that you love?
Well, it's Holy Week. It's Holy Week. So tomorrow, tomorrow.
We're all going to church. Tomorrow I take deep breath and start swimming.
(38:07):
As I'm sure you all know, I'll remind you that Lauren is the music director at her church.
What's your title is? Choir Master. Choir Master.
I'm sorry. If you're a praying person, pray for your clergy and all your church
musicians and all those people this week. Because it's a big one. They're playing.
It's arguably the busiest church week of the year. Well, yeah,
(38:29):
because you've got Maundy Thursday and then the Friday, which is the non-service service.
And then Easter Vigil. Holy Saturday. Holy Saturday. And then Easter Day.
Which I'm hoping to go.
I'm going to go to Easter Vigil so that I don't have to go on Easter Sunday.
Yeah. I'm doing all to
kill and my team is all in
(38:51):
for this whole weekend I love
I enjoy being up there and I love setting the table and getting everything arranged
and the flowers at our church are over the top so it's going to be beautiful
and it's going to be beautiful do y'all cover all of your statues right now and all of that,
(39:12):
we don't have statues Statues that it's Maundy Thursday, they'll strip the altar
and everything's covered and they throw black on the crosses.
Yeah. So all of the statues will be.
Yeah. But you don't agree.
Over the top. I can't wait to see it. And I love the flowering of the cross. Yes.
You know, I'm a high church person. Yes. Which I love to have again since I
(39:37):
wish we did bells. I missed that from the Catholic church.
But anyway. Well, I do. I like the incense. Well, that's, yeah.
Well, that's. All right. I'll double enjoy the bells for you.
I don't like incense because it gives me some kind of attack. Well, do you know what?
Every time I smell the incense, it reminds me of when we went to the Middle
East. It smells like the Middle East.
(39:58):
Oh, yeah. Which I guess makes sense since you know Jesus was from the Middle
East. I mean, that makes a lot of sense to me now.
But anyway. So what are you doing? You're kidding me. I can't believe it. What?
Yeah. So, all right. So you are doing Holy Week. Is that the life that you love? You have Friday.
Yeah, I'll have, I'm just, I'm going to a dear friend's wedding on Saturday
(40:22):
as quickly as I can, because I've got to run back.
And then Sunday we are celebrating. So my stepfather and my father have the same birthday.
That's interesting. My stepfather's turning 70 and my father's turning 75 this
year. So we are having a party for my stepfather on Easter day.
So that'll be fun. That'll be a good time. Okay.
(40:44):
Well, you know, I'm an old church lady. So yeah, I love Easter and I love doing altar guild and.
I will be in my element. And unfortunately, my son is not coming home.
But my daughter and I will cook and, you know, do all the Easter things.
What do you make for Easter? Well, I'm doing ham this year. I'm doing ham and biscuits.
(41:07):
And I'm doing, I love this salad that I used to make.
It's a blanched asparagus and fresh blueberries on it.
And then they used to make this parents dressing. But the closest you can get
to it now is palm lemon, sesame, ginger.
And you put that on it and serve it cold. It is fabulous. It tastes like spring.
(41:31):
It's wonderful. I'm doing that. And then I think I'm going to do this new shaved carrot recipe.
It's kind of cool. And then I'm doing carrot cake. I went and got coconut and
all that. I just doll it up. It's great. Okay.
Well, I'm going to Easter Vigil on Saturday night, so I do love the Easter Vigil Catholic service.
It is my favorite service of the year, even though it's the longest one.
(41:56):
I just, I don't know. There's just something so reverent about it. So I enjoy doing that.
And then Sunday, going over to my mother's house, I'm taking a sweet hash brown
casserole and get to hang out with my two of my kids cannot come home.
So I will not get to see them, but I'll get to see my sister's children and
my mom and my dad and their significant others.
(42:16):
So my son will be, my middle kid will be there with me, so that'll be nice. That'll be good.
That's that. Sounds good. Alright, well, ladies, Beth quit stitching long enough to do this. Cheers.
Cheers. Cheers and happiness.
Happiness and stitching and sipping. Thank y'all for joining us for Champagne Sunday.
(42:41):
See you next week, girls. See you next week.
Music.
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