March 13, 2025 • 48 mins
We talk about the pursuit of happiness as if it's something that will be achieved at some later date, if we just keep chasing it. But what if happiness is already here but we've been blinded to it? Dr. Gillian Mandich, a PhD in health science, believes that happiness is not a destination, it’s a practice; not something we earn, but something we learn. Liana talks with Dr. Mandich, founder of The International Happiness Institute of Health Science Research, about how to access the science of achieving happiness to enrich your life now, not at some vague future date.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
SAGA nine sixty AM or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. Hello, listeners
around the world on radio streaming podcast services. This is
this not therapy. I'm Leanna Kerzner, and I am not
(00:29):
a therapist, but I am your source for navigating the
madness of mental health using my top ten sayings for
going good crazy. This week, we're going to talk about happiness.
It's real and you can have it. My guest this
week is happiness expert doctor Julian Manditch, coming up in
the interview. But first let's set up what we're going
to be talking about this week. Happiness for more than well,
(00:55):
it's been going on a while. There's this concept going
around that people shouldn't celebrate or do fun things because
bad things are happening in the world. You know, how
can you have fun? How can you go to this?
How can you buy a nice dress for the Oscars?
When they're suffering and insert global conflict here, right. I
(01:16):
don't know when this attitude exactly started, but it was
definitely after World War Two, when keep calm and carry
on became the rallying cry for the United Kingdom. A
lesser known poster from the same period said, your courage,
your cheerfulness, your resolution will bring us victory. This was
(01:37):
a country that was being actively bombed. This idea that
you shouldn't do something happy because horrible things are happening
in the world isn't really based on anything in terms
of mental health principles. You don't forget the terrible thing
is terrible because you enjoy yourself for a few hours.
In fact, balancing things out can help you be more
(02:00):
resilient to the difficult things. Now, okay, we all know
that person who's quote unquote happy being miserable. It's true
a lot of the people scolding others for enjoying things
are fulfilling the stereotype of moody teenagers or moody young
adults in a prolonged state of adolescence. And then you
(02:20):
know there's the grumpy old man that like certain people
have this license to just be miserable. But if everyone
in the mental health field thought the way that these
people are allowed to, the burnout rates would be so
much higher than they already are, and they're high to
(02:42):
begin with. So why do we let these people in
our lives just walk around miserable? Oh, that's just them.
We're having a moment in Canada right now, aren't we,
And that moment is elbows up. You may have seen,
you know, Mike Myers on a reason Saturday Night Live,
(03:03):
and as some people south of the border are insisting,
that's a violent metaphor. But if you understand the origin
of the term from Gordy mister hockey, how it's a
reference to a defensive move. Isn't it interesting that the
rest of the world seems really confused about Canada being
(03:25):
angry right now? Oh, even though Donald Trump keeps referring
to us as the fifty first state or you know,
the future fifty first state. It's rude, it's obnoxious, it's petty,
But really, truthfully, we're kind of past being angry. Now
we're in the hockey jokes and get back to workface.
(03:47):
That's Canada. When we're not in the basketball jokes and
get back to work mode or the video games jokes
and get back to work zone. What the rest of
the world didn't experience that we Canadians did was how
scary the first round of tariff threats were the Only
thing I can compare it to is the dread that
(04:09):
I'm hearing from Europeans and countries bordering on Russia and Ukraine.
Right now. I've never seen Rosemary Barton on the CBC
look that shaken and grim. You know, she's normally got
that sort of you know, equidistance between polite, kind of
smug and kind of chipper. Yeah. No, she was white
(04:34):
and you know, not white people like Ashen scared. Right,
I'm blowing this anyway, Moving on the way, people were
talking these tariffs were gonna be the end of our country.
We were gonna be economically destroyed. Trump is still threatening
economic destruction. But okay, he threatened before and it didn't happen,
(04:56):
and then he tried it a month later and Canadian
and sought for what it was a bully tactic from
someone for whom cruelty was and is the point. And
don't get us wrong, we know we can't win a
blow by blow war of any kind with the US,
so we're kind of going down. If we're gonna go
(05:18):
down with humor and fun, we're gonna be proactive. We're
gonna buy Canadian We're gonna rediscover pride in our country
after years of opportunistic politicians telling us it was broken
and we aren't gonna sync to the level of rage
and menace and not needing friends as much as we
need enemies that the US government has descended into because
(05:41):
and this is a cliche, but that stuff that's not
who we Canadians are as a people. Canadians have never
wallowed in misery when things got tough. Sure will feel bad,
but then we get back to it. We're fighters, going
back to Vimy Ridge in World War One, and then
(06:03):
there was you know, the War of eighteen twelve. The
reason the Freedom Convoy shook us, like really shook us,
is that it felt like something from another place coming
here and bringing stuff that not only wasn't great, it
wasn't us. We're usually quiet about our pride in our
(06:24):
country and our culture, but you know, when you poke
us that pride, it wakes up. And the way Canadians
have been proactive instead of reactive in this whole thing
because it's the only thing we can really do. It's
been a real source of hope. Now, for those of
(06:46):
you listening from around the world, Canada is a country
where the weather tries to kill us in a different
way every season. People listening in you know, the Scandinavian area,
going yeah, we can relate. Yeah, Our seasons are extreme cold, flood,
extreme heat, and then swarms of bugs. And yet we're
consistently a pretty happy country, though our younger people need
(07:08):
some support there, you know, mostly with affording housing. Despite that,
despite all our struggles, we don't yet have the vitriol
that tends to engulf conversations on anything contentious. In the US,
we tend towards chill. I mean, obviously there are exceptions,
(07:29):
but we tend towards chill with a side of contentment.
And why is that? Well, okay, part of it is
that our basic healthcare is covered and our public education
system doesn't completely suck. But happiness, contentment comes down to
perceptions and expectations, and I think that part has started
(07:51):
to slip with the inundation of US style media making
us miserable for profit. But there are ways to get
our happy back. I'll talk more about things you can
do right away to be happier in the last segment
of the show, but first I want to get to
our guest, doctor Jillian Mandage, happiness expert. Jillian will join
(08:13):
me after the break. You're gonna have a great time
with Jillian. Do you have a story you think would
be good for the show? Are you interested in sponsoring
the show? Leanna at Nottherapyshow dot com. Not Therapyshow dot
com is the website at not Therapy Show on social media.
We'll be back with doctor Jillianmanditch after the break.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Stream US live at SAGA nine to six am dot C.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. We're back
in this therapy I'm still Leana Cursor, I'm still not
a therapist. We are still talking happiness. Yes it is
(09:01):
real and yes you can have it. And the Lady
of the hour is here. I've met this fabulous lady
at the Women's show in Barry with her adorable French bulldog,
and of course I talked to the dog before I
talked to Jillian. But this is why Jillian is here,
because I went dog. Oh. Doctor. Jillian Manditch is the
founder of the International Happiness Institute. The tagline of the
(09:25):
International Happiness Institute is there is no secret to happiness,
but there is a science to it. You can find
Jillian in all social media by looking up Jillian manditchmadic
h Jillian welcomed. It's not therapy. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
I am so happy to be here having this conversation
with you today. No, it was such a joy meeting
you and Barry, so I'm excited to continue the conversation.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
When you say you're happy to be here, that is
literal for you.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
So, I just want to start. You're a happiness expert,
and a lot of the stuff you see a lot
of the things people are drawn to say happiness isn't real.
You shouldn't seek out happiness. You should focus on duty
because that's where real fulfillment lies. But you study the
science of happiness. Let's just start real basic. Is happiness real? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Absolutely? I think so. I have a PhD in health
science and health promotion. Within that health promotion is the
area of focus within health science that I did my PhD.
And the reason I did is because when you look
to data and you compare happy people with less happy people,
happy people have better physical health, so lower rates of
(10:37):
cardiovascular disease, stronger immune systems, they heal faster from injury,
they perform better at work. We see outcomes in terms
of enhanced creativity, problem solving relationships. So it really the
benefits extend beyond just our physical self into every facet
of our life. And so, you know, a lot of
times I think people think that it's a fluffy topic,
(10:58):
but the data is really clear that this is something
that's extremely important. And you know, we talk about our
physical health and things that we can do like sleep
and you know, eat healthy, move our bodies. Another really
big piece of this conversation is is the happiness piece.
It's the sort of the mental health, uh, the side
of the conversation as well.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Yeah, and people are going to think I planned it
this way. I had a primary care physician on last week, Jillian,
talking about exactly what you just said, that there's a
mind body link. And it's interesting that you say happiness
is a big equation. We tend to talk about things
in terms of anxiety and depression. We talk about the
(11:37):
illness aspect of it. We don't talk about the health
aspect of it. We don't think of happiness as a
health thing. One of the first things I said to
you is, I want to talk about this because people
think achievements make you happy. You know, if I make
a million dollars, then I'll be happy. If I start
my own business, then I'll be happy. If I get
elected something, if I win an oscar, if if then
(11:58):
I'll be happy. And it doesn't work that way, does it.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Not at all? And I mean this is a very
common thought pattern because like part of it is we
have to give ourselves grace because were you taught how
to be happy in school growing up? Right? So we
don't know we were not taught. And then you have
like marketing and media and social media sort of telling
us these things, right, this big fancy house or car,
whatever's going to make you happy. But what we know
(12:23):
when we look at the research is that happiness is
not a destination. Right. You don't arrive at happiness and
then you're like set for the rest of your life,
right if you think of Even so, if you're listening
right now, a moment in your life that was really happy.
You don't just extend that feeling for the rest of
your life. It doesn't work like that. So how I
see happiness is instead of seeing it like a destination,
(12:44):
is something that you may or may not arrive at
one day if in the future potentially, I see happiness
as a habit and a practice. And what I mean
by that is, so instead of thinking about happiness like
a destination, if we think about it the same way
we think about physical activity or nutrition. So say after
our chat today, you go to the gym and you
have the best worker of your life, okay, Or if
you're listening right now, you go to the gym and
(13:05):
have the best worker of your life. Would you leave
the gym and take your phone and text your friend
or your partner and say, I just went to the
gym and had the best work out of my life.
I've reached fitness. We would not do that, or nutrition right,
We wouldn't drink a green smoothie for breakfast with like
all the superfoods and then say, Okay, that's great, I've
reached nutritional wellness. Right, It's gonna roll around and we're
(13:26):
gonna get hungry again, right, And so we understand that
if we want to be fit and healthy, we have
to do things on a regular basis to move our body,
choose healthy food, and so happiness is the same way.
It's a practice and it's a habit. And you know,
one of my big pet peeves is when you go
into like a home to course store and they have
all like the little things that have like the little
sayings that you put in your kitchen or your bathroom
(13:48):
or whatever, the one that says choose happy. Because the
reality is, it's not like we wake up in the
morning and we choose our outfit and we choose happy.
Sometimes we may have a moment of just pure luck
of something happiest happens, but the majority of it is
something that we actually have to work at. It's like
a muscle, it's a skill that we need to develop.
And so when we think about happiness like that, what
(14:08):
I love is it's a much more empowering way to
think about happiness because instead of putting our happiness as
contingent on something that may or may not happen in
the future, right that I will be heavy when it
now brings to the question what is something I can
do today? What actions can I take to build my
happiness muscle? And so when we think about it like that,
it really starts to shift the conversation.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Yeah, and I like the way you put that. That
was part of your talk at the Women's Show. I'm like, yeah, yeah,
I hate the green juice because most people drink it
and it makes them miserable. And instead of going, Okay,
what's something healthy that tastes good as opposed to this
thing I'm doing to meet some goal? What is it?
I mean, goal setting is a huge part of it, right,
(14:53):
I say on the show healthy goals are based on
things you can control. And you talked about how this
conditional stuff, basing your happiness on the reactions of other people.
That's I think something that's a mistake a lot of
people make. What's an adaptation that you tell people because
they're like, oh, easy to say, hard to do. What
(15:15):
does this sort of look like, right, flexing that happiness muscle?
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (15:20):
So one, uh, it is impossible to be happy all
the time. And I think that before we go any further,
like to address that. The amount of people that think,
because I study happiness, that I'm happy all the time,
and I'm always like no, no, no, And in fact
there's research. Sometimes it's just sort of referred to as
like the dark side of happiness, or what we see
is that people who try to be happy all of
the time end up being less happy than other people.
(15:43):
So one, we need to give ourselves grace and accept
the fact that we are humans and we have a
lot of emotions. So we can't be happy all the time.
But can we be happier than we are right now? Absolutely?
And so what I think about is certif if you think,
think about your happiness like a muscle. Right, If you
go into the gym and you lift one weight that
(16:04):
your bicep, you do a bicep girl, you don't really
get that much stronger. But if you consistently go to
the gym and put in the reps, over time, you
will get stronger. And that's how happiness works too. So
you do these little micro moments I call them a
happiness throughout the day, and then what happens is over time,
like if you were had a sort of a graph,
your highs will get higher, your happiness will increase. But
(16:25):
then the other piece of it is in life, hard
things happen. You know, job losses happen, divorces happen, the
health issues, pandemics, And so a happy life doesn't mean
like smooth sailing, drinking Margarita's on the beach. A happy
life means that as we start to grow our happiness muscle,
(16:46):
our hies get higher, and the lows are those challenging moments.
It's not that they go away, it's that we become
more resilient and better able to cope with them when
they do. And I think, you know, it's really important
that we start to see happiness, not from this sort
of Pollyanna rose colored glasses thing, but to know that
a lot of our happiness is a skill we have
to put in the reps. We know that frequency of
(17:09):
positive emotions is a much better predictor of your happiness
than intensity. So you want those little things, whether you know.
And the thing about this is, though it's hard to
wrap your mind around it at first, because when you
think about the things that make you happy, usually it's
like the big shiny moments that come to mind, right
the birthday, the trip you just went on, the car
you just bought, whatever it is. But the reality is
(17:31):
if you sort of look and map out your time.
Our day to day life adds up to a lot
more time than those big moments, and so it's a
huge area of opportunity for all of us to start
to cultivate more happiness in our life by focusing on
you know, micro moments.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
I call them.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
I used to call them small moments, but I don't
mean small in terms of impact, right, I mean it
in terms of they don't take a lot of time
or effort. So things like social connection, you know, practicing gratitude,
giving a compliment to a stranger, kindness, spending time with
pets and animals. There's so many ways that you can
sort of ask yourself what are the things that it
(18:10):
do I do that actually bring me joy? And that's
such a great place to start because awareness is the
first step. Right, If you don't know what makes you happy,
no one else is going to be able to tell
you what that is except for you, and we each
have to figure that out for us.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
All. Yeah, that's one thing I've noticed that if you
are attuned to negatives, you ignore the positives, focusing on
the negatives because they're threats. Right. Our brain's first and
foremost that lizard brain, that cave person brain is designed
to keep us safe, not make us happy. Right, So
(18:46):
if you are focused on the threats, if you're focused
on those little micro moments, like for me, it's coffee
in the morning, you know, having that moment to just
smell it, and having the whole room fill with coffee,
smell black coffee, people like you gross, I don't care.
I like it, but having that and it's five minutes, right,
(19:09):
but it's something I can control, I can guarantee is
gonna happen, and it does absolutely nothing but make me happy.
To me, I found that the more I started focusing
on that, I didn't ignore the negatives, but they skewed differently,
right Like, instead of the negative being the thing I
(19:30):
was looking at and the happiness being a distraction, it inverted.
The cool things that happened were my primary focus and
the negatives were now in the peripheral. Is that basically
how your research is said it works.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
Yeah, so I love that you brought this up. What
you're talking about is called the negativity bias. And the
way I think about the negativity bias is it sort
of like pre installed software that came in our brain, right,
It's like you know, when you get a new computer
or a new phone, it has like the pre installed apps,
and then you have to upload or like better ones, right,
like Google Chrome instead of the default browser. So basically,
(20:05):
the negativity bias is our brains tendency, even in the
midst of a lot of good, even if the good
outweighs in number significantly the negative, our tendency is to
focus on the negative. So, for example, if someone received
ten compliments in a day and one person said one
bad thing. When you go home at night, you put
your head on the pillow, you're thinking about that one thing, right,
(20:26):
it's one. It's important to know that it's natural that
it was pre installed in US, and it actually came
from a good place, because if we hit rewind and
go back in history, we actually did have to be
on the lookout for danger all the time, right, We
didn't have the conveniences and the safety of the modern world.
And so what's happened is our brains have not caught
(20:46):
up with the modern world, so we're running outdated software.
And so what you did is exactly what one can
do to override that negativity bias. You start to actually
intentionally focus on the good are to retrain your brain
to look for the good. It's hard at first, but
(21:06):
what we know is that from the psychology behavior change
is that the habit for me at the beginning is
much more difficult. It gets easier over time. So does
that require you having to put a little more attention
and focus and resources into looking for the good? Absolutely,
but over time it starts to get easier. And so,
like you said, like when you think about things that
(21:26):
you're grateful for, or taking time to savor things, or
all of those things, starting to cultivate that habit to
override the brain's negativity bias to sort of like think
about it, like reinstall better software in our brain. Right,
That's something that's really powerful because I think as humans,
we think we're like these logical, rational creatures, right, But
(21:46):
the reality is our brain plays tricks on us all
the time. And so this tendency to focus on the
negative is one of those examples where our brain does
that without even us realizing. And if we want to
do something different, we actually have to in the the
attention focus, take a time, slow it down. But we
(22:07):
do know that when you do that, you can actually
reinstall better software.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
All right, Doctor Jillianmandage, happiness expert, founder of the International
Happiness Institute of Health Science Research. Jillian, I want to
take a break and then come back to that idea
of how to reinstall new software, because, like you said,
it is tough at first. I want this to have
itsine segment. Okay, to hold on for a second. Come
back after the break. Questions, comments, concerns Leanna at not
(22:33):
therapieshow dot com. Not therapy show dot com is the
website at not Therapy Show is social media. We're talking
to doctor Jillianmandage about happiness. It is real and you
can have it when we come back, and it's not therapy.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Stream us live at SAGA nine six am dot C.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. We're back
going to say therapy. I'm still in a cursoner. I'm
still not a therapist. We are still in the interview,
still talking to the absolutely wonderful Jillian Bandage, who studies.
(23:21):
Doctor Jillian Bandage studies the science of happiness, She is
the founder of the International Happiness Institute of Health Science Research,
and we were talking before the break Jillian about how
learning to be happier at first is pretty miserable. And
this sounds counterintuitive, right because change is painful, and this
(23:42):
has gotta be a real challenge for you with people
taking those first steps. That's why, like on this show,
I like to focus on those first steps because the
pleasure pain principle indicates that most people don't change until
continuing where you're going is less painful than making it change.
We often don't change as humans to be happier, We
(24:04):
do it to be less miserable. So that's where I
want to start. You started about the negativity bias and
having to put a lot of work off the top
to overcome this and change habits. So how do people
start to change habits?
Speaker 3 (24:22):
So before we get into how to change habits, just
to take a step back for a second. When we
think about our total capacity for happiness, there's three main players.
So there is genetics, so you can think your parents
are not but your genes play a role in terms
of your capacity for happiness. The second one is environment,
and I think all of us who have lived through
a pandemic in lockdowns, know how environment can affect our mood, right.
(24:44):
And then there's this third piece, and that's the piece
where we have the most autonomy, and that's our thoughts,
our actions, and our habits. And so what we know
from research is when we focus on that third part
our thoughts, our actions, and our habits, and that's where
all of my work and research focuses on, we cannot
only increase our happiness short term, we can actually start
to sustain it at higher levels. So when we think
(25:07):
about these things that we can do to override the
negativity bias and to bring more happiness, if you think
about them as sort of reps, the more that you
do this over time and it becomes a habit, right,
then you can actually be happier like a sustain it
at higher levels. And when we think about, okay, well,
what are some of the things that we can do,
(25:27):
there's so many different things. And I think this is
an important piece of the conversation as well, is that
there's no one size fits all approach to happiness and
it's different for every single person. And not only that,
to make it even more complicated, if you think about
what made you happy when you were like ten years
old versus when you were twenty five, versus fifty versus
one hundred, It changes, right, So learning about our own
(25:50):
happiness is sort of this ongoing iterative process that we
have to answer for ourselfs. So in terms of things
that you like to do, that you enjoy that bring
you happiness, one exercise I often encourage people to do
is what I call happy hunting, And it's really simple.
All you do is you take out a piece of
paper or you can use like the note section in
your phone, and you have two columns or two sections,
(26:11):
depending on if you're on the computer or you're writing
it out, and the one says more happy and the
second one says less happy. And as you go throughout
your day and you do something, put it in which category.
So for example, walking my dog in the morning that
would go in more happy, doing email that would go
less happy. Right, So you do that for your day,
or if you want to get a rich your data set,
(26:32):
you can do it for a couple of days and
then you look at the list and you look at
the things that make you more happy, and then you think, okay,
well there we go. Now I'm starting to learn what
are those things that make me happy and starting to
sort of be aware of them to then start to
include more of that in your life.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
It's funny. I call that similar principle happy math. I
love that if something some total makes you happier, keep
doing it. If something some total makes you a lit
little bit happy now but miserable down the road, well
that's bad. Happy math.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
And I love that.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
I think so many people do do that. They are
so desperate for a short term quick fix, and they
they confuse that sort of rush in the short term
with actual happiness, right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
And to build on the happy math concept too, we
often think what do I have to do to be happy?
What can I do?
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Right?
Speaker 3 (27:30):
And so that list will tell you things that make
you happy. But then the other piece of the math
is subtraction. Right, are there things on my lists that
are not making me happy that I can reduce get
rid of all together? Do less frequency, spend less time
thinking about it if I can't get rid of it, right,
So the both edition and the subtraction really come into
the happy math for people.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
Yeah, and I mean that spend less time thinking about it? Wow,
that's a big topic, right, because we see articles almost
every week now about sleep, and I mean cognitive behavioral
therapy for insomnia actually has its own achron acronym. Now
they've just shortened it to CBTI because it's such a
thing now people hit the pillow and the gremlins start, right,
(28:16):
And this idea that there is something you can do
about that, right, that is not inevitable. You can actually
form better habits so you don't get that galaxy brain,
you don't wind up as you're trying to wind down.
And that idea of we talk about resources in terms
(28:39):
of money, wealth, you know, of all kinds of food,
social capital. We don't think about our thoughts as a resource. Right,
How does somebody spend train themselves form a habit that
they spend less time thinking about the doom?
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Yeah? You know this is hard, to be honest, it's hard,
and I struggle with it myself too. And this is
where we have to give ourself grace to see this
as a practice, not as a perfect And one of
the things that I know for myself is that if
my battery is charged in a lot of ways, so
(29:22):
I've done things to take care of myself. So I've
had a good night's sleep the night before. You know,
I've moved my body, I've eaten healthy food. My capacity
to have sort of more control over stopping the doom
thinking is a lot higher. But if you know you're
stressed out and all of that, it's a lot more difficult.
And so one knowing that right and giving ourselves grace.
(29:43):
So what I do. One of the things is that
sometimes there are really scary things. Like my dog Jocko.
He ended up having bladderstones, but there was a period
where he was urinating blood and we didn't know what
was going on, and so I was really stressed and
justifiably so, right, there are things that are stressful, and
so I would give myself worry time, because you can't
(30:03):
just like pretend like it's not happening. Right, it's scary,
and so I would give myself. I'd set a timer
and I'd be like, Okay, you get to worry for
fifteen minutes, and after that you stop. You can come
back to it later, but it just contains it in
a way that doesn't pretend like nothing's going on, but
doesn't let it overcome and consume twenty four hours in your.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Day yeah, that legit works. People listening, they think, what
I can't do that, No, you can't. That's actually really
it works, and it stops that it actually does. Let
your brain know you're gonna get a moment for this.
I hear you. I'm recognizing the issue, but we're gonna
do this on my schedule, not yours, right, yep, yeah, yep.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
And the other thing too, is that, like I think
that it's it's paradoxically when we start to lean into
those things that we stop forcing ourselves to try to
I'm doing like air quotes and the word shit being right,
like we're humans. And so the other thing that I
do sometimes is like I have a tendency to like
and I'm sure people listening maybe can relate. You know,
(31:10):
you have one thought and then your mind spirals to
like the point that the world is ending or you're dying, right,
and so my brain goes to extremes to catastrophizing, right,
is it what they would the term that it is?
And so what I'll do is I'll do a thought
experiment and be like, Okay, so what if this happens
then what then?
Speaker 2 (31:27):
What then? What?
Speaker 3 (31:27):
You just keep going deeper into like the worst that
you allow your brain to go through all of that,
and eventually you sort of see that a lot of
it is just the fear that you're putting in your head.
And when you start to say it out loud and
express the emotions and the things that you're scared about,
what we see is that it sort of loosens the
emotional grip that it's.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Happening on you.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
You know, it doesn't take it away, but it does
loosen it because you're labeling it. Labeling emotions can be
really powerful or feelings or fears.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Yeah, And it's amazing nowadays how many people have feelings
they can't name, they can identified, they think it's bad,
so they're just gonna not look at it. And we
know that emotional vocabulary is really important to emotional processing
and even feeling, both the good and bad feelings. Yes, right.
And with men it seems to be things like fear
(32:18):
or vulnerability that they just can't feel stunted in childhood
when they were told look after your mother at the
age of eight. With women, it's anger and or even
like you said, you know, the live laugh love pillow crowd.
I dunk on them a lot, but I do think
it's true if you need to remind yourself to live, laugh,
(32:39):
and love, what is going on there? They don't focus
on the emotions they've considered bad. And like you've said,
we need a full range of emotions. Nobody is happy
all the time. And when you feel it and you
name it and you work through it, the negative emotion
(33:00):
goes in its proper place. When we stop that process,
it's like getting stuck, something stuck in our emotional throat, right,
mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
So how do people learn to feel their feelings? Because
there is a science to that too. We know that
emotions manifest in the body, and manifest is a woou term,
but like we experience it. We get headaches, we get
upset stomachs, we feel nauseous, We can even get a
sore throat from stress. How do people start feeling and
identifying their feelings?
Speaker 3 (33:30):
Yeah, you know, you hear this all the time. People
say feel your feelings, feel your feelings, and it's like, okay,
what does that mean?
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Right? Right?
Speaker 3 (33:36):
And so I think that part of it is starting
to develop some self awareness or some interroception, like looking
how you feel. So sometimes like for example, if you're
feeling anxious, right, if I be like, okay, take a
breath and just check in with your body, do a
quick body scan. What are you noticing? Maybe your heart
(33:56):
rate feels like it's racing a little bit faster, Maybe
your palms feel sweaty, maybe you feel like you're on edge.
Like I notice for myself that I'll if I scan
my body, that I'm clenching my jaw or like that.
If I in hell, I could really relax my shoulders.
But I didn't even realize that I was holding that
tension in my body. And so you start to notice,
(34:17):
like what are the things that my body is doing
right now? And then there's sort of two pieces to it.
There's the feeling the feeling, but then there's also the
like how do you navigate that in your body piece?
And so one of the things that I do is
like I'll do like a breathing exercise, because when you
can start to calm your physiology, it starts to calm
(34:37):
your mind as well. And so sometimes when you can't
get a grip, the best thing to do is start
by changing your body, because we know how to do that.
So something as simple as like some breath work. One
of my favorite ones is you take a big inhale,
you pause for a second, and then you take like
another inhal so you don't exhale, so it's almost like
you take a breath, hold it and then try to
(34:59):
suck a little bit more and then a long, slow
exhale and I'll do that minimum three, you know whatever,
five times and just by doing that, you can feel
the physiology start to relax in your body a little bit.
And I love this because it can be done anywhere,
it doesn't cost anything, it's not difficult, and a lot
(35:20):
of times for me, I'll notice if I start to spiral,
it's because my body is feeling really tense. And then
by stopping my body, I stop my mind a little
bit and it doesn't the spiral doesn't get so bad
because you're changing interrupting the physiology before you even get
to the psychology.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Yeah, that is science, and that's why we had doctor
Jillian Manditch on doctor Jillian g I L L I
A and Mandage M A N D C H. I'm
saying this because that's how you can reach her on
social media. Jillian, you are everywhere. How do people get
in touch with you? Find out where you're speaking, I
stumbled on you, Okay, well I stumbled on Jocko and
(35:59):
that's how I met you. And Jocko is truly adorable.
But how do people find out what you're doing? Because
you're all over the place.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
The best place to stay in touch with me is
social media Instagram primarily trying to get better at LinkedIn.
It's not going so great. Ye, And my website is
Jillianmandage dot com and there's a contact page there so
if anyone has questions or anything, that contact page comes
in as well.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
So yeah, and you've got some really cool resources on
the International Happiness Institute as well. Jillian, thanks so much
for coming on the program and giving some people some
first steps regarding a happier life.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
Thank you so much for having me. Really to be
able to share the science of happiness and have this
conversation that I did with you today that was so
rich and so thought provoking and helpful is such a privilege.
So I want to thank you for the work that
you do, for having me on and yeah, just thank you.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
All right, when we come back is promised off the top.
I'm going to give you three things, three categories of
things you can do starting right now to be happier.
These things really really work when we come back, questions, comments,
concerns Leanna at not Therapyshow dot com. Not therapyshow dot
com is the website at not Therapy Show. Is the
(37:12):
socials be back with happiness. It's real and you can
have it. I'll tell you how after the break.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
Stream US live at SAGA nine sixty am dot CA.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot ca. We're back in.
It's not therapy. I'm still Leanna Kerzner. I'm still talking
happiness is still not a therapist. I'm still flying the
(37:48):
Canadian pride. Yeah, it's all real, you can have it.
Off the top of the show, I went, yeah, Canada, right.
I promise to tell you everything you can do to
start being happier right now, and I'm gonna make good
on that promise. Okay. Thing one that you can do
(38:10):
to start being happier right now is accept reality. Accept
reality all of reality. No filtering out the good parts
to feed a misery. Narrative and obviously top ten phrase,
ignoring negatives isn't being positive. If you can't see the
good parts of your life right now, right now, no
(38:32):
amount of achievement in the future will make you happy,
because every time you achieve something, you'll dismiss the good
parts of that and only focus on how hard it
was to get there. Now, why, No, if I accomplish
things all feel happy? No, you won't, because you've been
training yourself all along to dismiss the good and only
(38:56):
focus on the bad parts. And it may be because
you think, oh, you're jinxing yourself, you're setting yourself up
for a fall by actively enjoying good moments. But it's
very important to live in reality, all of reality, which
means giving yourself credit for what you do right, as
(39:20):
well as checking yourself for what you do wrong. You
cannot effectively and healthily have one without the other. It
doesn't matter what's going on. You can take little moments,
that first sip of morning coffee or enjoying a really
good meal or a nice sunny day. You know taking
(39:43):
those moments will help your overall level of happiness. Your
cat does something goofy that's happy, Enjoy that somebody else's
cat does something goofy on the internet. That's great. Enjoy
that we're working on putting some cat videos up on
the social media. You're right now, these are moments, that's
all they are, nothing more. You don't have to tie
(40:05):
them into a larger narrative. Just take the happy Now.
What you focus on is what your brain is going
to flag as more relevant information going forward. That is
part of what you know I referred to as happy
math in the interview with Jillian Understanding. This is part
(40:26):
of what's called mindfulness by the mental health industry. But
I think this whole thing actually requires an additional degree
of storytelling, involving accepting reality, like living in reality, because
everyone's life has ups and downs. You know, a song
into each life submarine mustful, You know that one. There's
(40:48):
three basic stories you can tell yourself about life'sops and downs.
Story one, the good times they don't ast? Story two?
Who the bad times? Ah, they don't last. Story three
Neither the good times nor the bad times last. Sounds
(41:10):
like an eighties pop song, doesn't it. Option three is
obviously the most complete and accurate and pop song. Ye
right it Yeah? Good times temporary, bad times temporary. That's
not a reason to do nothing to improve your circumstances.
(41:31):
It's just accepting reality right now. If you take that
third narrative, neither the good times nor the bad times last,
and you add it to my top ten phrase, ignoring
negatives isn't being positive? Well, what you arrive at is,
instead of trying to convince yourself that things don't suck
(41:53):
to put on a happy face, you know don't. What
can you focus on that's with in your control right
now to make things suck a little less. There is
something I guarantee you, and this is where the hard
but rewarding work really begins. And it's the second thing
(42:16):
you can do to be happier right now. Second thing
you can do to be happier right now, own your choices. Yep, again,
big cliche, but here's the stuff it will tell you.
Owning your choices is so very difficult and painful at first,
like no joke. You feel like you're dying and everything
(42:37):
is your fault. How does this make you happier? I'm
getting to that. We talk about boundaries a lot, but
most of that talk is empty. Not many people are
really good at boundaries because it's just much easier in
the short term to fall into the you made me.
I had no choice. I was just fighting back, punching up,
(42:57):
stopping the flow of fentanyl. Yeah, I had to sneak
that one, right it. Elbows up, yeah, elbows up nah. Nah.
In all those situations, people made choices, right. We start
off life defining ourselves entirely by the reactions of our parents,
and it's a real challenge to mature and evolve beyond that.
(43:18):
Most of us spend our lives more worried about the
opinions and actions of others than our own sense of
well being. We let people hurt us because we're afraid
if we don't, they'll hurt us worse. Again. Changing this
is hard, but in order to be happier, we have
to change that, because when you start noticing all the
(43:38):
unnecessary putdowns that come your way from people who allegedly
love you, well, it hurts a lot, and in order
to be happier, some of those people may have to go.
You shouldn't feel like an annoying burden to the people
around you, and it takes some examination to figure out
whether that message is internal, external, or combination of both.
(44:01):
Now it's likely a combination of both, because you know,
if you weren't made to feel like an annoying burden
as a child, you're far less likely to take it
and dish it out as an adult. It doesn't seem
normal unless you got it as a kid. Normal isn't healthy.
If the people around you care more about explaining why
they said something that hurt you than listening to the
(44:24):
fact that it hurt you and trying to find a
better way to communicate, that is going to negatively impact
your happiness. Owning that you are choosing to stay in
those situations is a big part of deciding whether the
benefits of those relationships outweigh the pain or choosing to
leave the relationship. Most of us do have a lot
(44:45):
more choices than we realize. We've been separated from them
by a ton of you know, subtle or not subtle,
emotional abuse that doesn't have to be forever. Would you
want someone to just be hurt by the the things
you say and not tell you no, then why do
you think you're expected to just suck up those hurts?
(45:09):
Flip side? Are you a person who takes it well
when someone says something is bothering them? Are you sure
really be the person you'd want to have that conversation
with from the other side. How would you want someone
to react when you came to them and said, look
that thing you're doing, it's hurting my feelings. How would
(45:32):
you want them to react? Be the person you'd want
to go to. And that's easier if you do the
third thing that can make you happier right now, too, ding,
and that is third thing. Seek the good. Seek the good,
set healthy goals based on things you can control. Make
sure your expectations aren't set too low, too low, or
(45:56):
too high. Do some things just for the fun of them.
Be around good people more, be around bad people less.
Dump the transactional friendships, and prioritize real human connection. Not
every blanket thing has to be networking. My god, that's
a path to misery. Stop consuming content that tells you
how bad everything is, especially dating. Oh Lord, All consuming
(46:20):
that stuff is going to do is make you feel
helpless and hopeless. Focus on what you can control, not
what you can't control. And again, be the person you'd
want as a best friend, as a partner, as a manager,
and as a coworker. Instead of waiting for people to
show you kindness and respect before you extend it. The
(46:44):
world reflects back to you what you put into it.
But again, you wouldn't want your best friend, partner, manager,
or coworker to be making themselves miserable for you, So
don't make yourself miserable for other people expecting them to
(47:04):
come along and save you from it. Again. Boundaries, self care, mindfulness,
live in reality, accept reality, own your choices, seek the good,
don't people please in a search for people control. Now,
I knowingly did a show on happiness at a time
when a lot of people aren't feeling it because of
(47:26):
the news, because of everything that's going on, because of
instability and insecurity. And if you're not feeling happy right now,
I didn't do this show to make you feel bad,
right It's okay. If you are feeling something like scared
or angry or sad, that's okay. We have all these
(47:48):
feelings for a reason. But it's very important that you
check in and name your feelings so you know what
you're feeling. Because we don't make the best choices when
we're angry or scared or sad, right we tend to
go into fight or flight freeze fon fight or flight mode,
(48:09):
so recenter. Check out at not Therapy Show Online, we
are putting up cat videos to help with your happy Yes,
videos of my cats are up there. Otherwise, questions, comments,
concerns Leanna at nottherapyshow dot com. Not Therapy Show is.
Not Therapy show dot com is the website. You're crazy
is only a problem if it's hurting you. Hang in there.
Speaker 1 (48:34):
Stream us live at SAGA nine six am dot CA.
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
SAGA nine sixty AM or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. Hello, listeners
around the world on radio streaming podcast services. This is
this not therapy. I'm Leanna Kerzner, and I am not
(00:29):
a therapist, but I am your source for navigating the
madness of mental health using my top ten sayings for
going good crazy. This week, we're going to talk about happiness.
It's real and you can have it. My guest this
week is happiness expert doctor Julian Manditch, coming up in
the interview. But first let's set up what we're going
to be talking about this week. Happiness for more than well,
(00:55):
it's been going on a while. There's this concept going
around that people shouldn't celebrate or do fun things because
bad things are happening in the world. You know, how
can you have fun? How can you go to this?
How can you buy a nice dress for the Oscars?
When they're suffering and insert global conflict here, right. I
(01:16):
don't know when this attitude exactly started, but it was
definitely after World War Two, when keep calm and carry
on became the rallying cry for the United Kingdom. A
lesser known poster from the same period said, your courage,
your cheerfulness, your resolution will bring us victory. This was
(01:37):
a country that was being actively bombed. This idea that
you shouldn't do something happy because horrible things are happening
in the world isn't really based on anything in terms
of mental health principles. You don't forget the terrible thing
is terrible because you enjoy yourself for a few hours.
In fact, balancing things out can help you be more
(02:00):
resilient to the difficult things. Now, okay, we all know
that person who's quote unquote happy being miserable. It's true
a lot of the people scolding others for enjoying things
are fulfilling the stereotype of moody teenagers or moody young
adults in a prolonged state of adolescence. And then you
(02:20):
know there's the grumpy old man that like certain people
have this license to just be miserable. But if everyone
in the mental health field thought the way that these
people are allowed to, the burnout rates would be so
much higher than they already are, and they're high to
(02:42):
begin with. So why do we let these people in
our lives just walk around miserable? Oh, that's just them.
We're having a moment in Canada right now, aren't we,
And that moment is elbows up. You may have seen,
you know, Mike Myers on a reason Saturday Night Live,
(03:03):
and as some people south of the border are insisting,
that's a violent metaphor. But if you understand the origin
of the term from Gordy mister hockey, how it's a
reference to a defensive move. Isn't it interesting that the
rest of the world seems really confused about Canada being
(03:25):
angry right now? Oh, even though Donald Trump keeps referring
to us as the fifty first state or you know,
the future fifty first state. It's rude, it's obnoxious, it's petty,
But really, truthfully, we're kind of past being angry. Now
we're in the hockey jokes and get back to workface.
(03:47):
That's Canada. When we're not in the basketball jokes and
get back to work mode or the video games jokes
and get back to work zone. What the rest of
the world didn't experience that we Canadians did was how
scary the first round of tariff threats were the Only
thing I can compare it to is the dread that
(04:09):
I'm hearing from Europeans and countries bordering on Russia and Ukraine.
Right now. I've never seen Rosemary Barton on the CBC
look that shaken and grim. You know, she's normally got
that sort of you know, equidistance between polite, kind of
smug and kind of chipper. Yeah. No, she was white
(04:34):
and you know, not white people like Ashen scared. Right,
I'm blowing this anyway, Moving on the way, people were
talking these tariffs were gonna be the end of our country.
We were gonna be economically destroyed. Trump is still threatening
economic destruction. But okay, he threatened before and it didn't happen,
(04:56):
and then he tried it a month later and Canadian
and sought for what it was a bully tactic from
someone for whom cruelty was and is the point. And
don't get us wrong, we know we can't win a
blow by blow war of any kind with the US,
so we're kind of going down. If we're gonna go
(05:18):
down with humor and fun, we're gonna be proactive. We're
gonna buy Canadian We're gonna rediscover pride in our country
after years of opportunistic politicians telling us it was broken
and we aren't gonna sync to the level of rage
and menace and not needing friends as much as we
need enemies that the US government has descended into because
(05:41):
and this is a cliche, but that stuff that's not
who we Canadians are as a people. Canadians have never
wallowed in misery when things got tough. Sure will feel bad,
but then we get back to it. We're fighters, going
back to Vimy Ridge in World War One, and then
(06:03):
there was you know, the War of eighteen twelve. The
reason the Freedom Convoy shook us, like really shook us,
is that it felt like something from another place coming
here and bringing stuff that not only wasn't great, it
wasn't us. We're usually quiet about our pride in our
(06:24):
country and our culture, but you know, when you poke
us that pride, it wakes up. And the way Canadians
have been proactive instead of reactive in this whole thing
because it's the only thing we can really do. It's
been a real source of hope. Now, for those of
(06:46):
you listening from around the world, Canada is a country
where the weather tries to kill us in a different
way every season. People listening in you know, the Scandinavian area,
going yeah, we can relate. Yeah, Our seasons are extreme cold, flood,
extreme heat, and then swarms of bugs. And yet we're
consistently a pretty happy country, though our younger people need
(07:08):
some support there, you know, mostly with affording housing. Despite that,
despite all our struggles, we don't yet have the vitriol
that tends to engulf conversations on anything contentious. In the US,
we tend towards chill. I mean, obviously there are exceptions,
(07:29):
but we tend towards chill with a side of contentment.
And why is that? Well, okay, part of it is
that our basic healthcare is covered and our public education
system doesn't completely suck. But happiness, contentment comes down to
perceptions and expectations, and I think that part has started
(07:51):
to slip with the inundation of US style media making
us miserable for profit. But there are ways to get
our happy back. I'll talk more about things you can
do right away to be happier in the last segment
of the show, but first I want to get to
our guest, doctor Jillian Mandage, happiness expert. Jillian will join
(08:13):
me after the break. You're gonna have a great time
with Jillian. Do you have a story you think would
be good for the show? Are you interested in sponsoring
the show? Leanna at Nottherapyshow dot com. Not Therapyshow dot
com is the website at not Therapy Show on social media.
We'll be back with doctor Jillianmanditch after the break.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Stream US live at SAGA nine to six am dot C.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. We're back
in this therapy I'm still Leana Cursor, I'm still not
a therapist. We are still talking happiness. Yes it is
(09:01):
real and yes you can have it. And the Lady
of the hour is here. I've met this fabulous lady
at the Women's show in Barry with her adorable French bulldog,
and of course I talked to the dog before I
talked to Jillian. But this is why Jillian is here,
because I went dog. Oh. Doctor. Jillian Manditch is the
founder of the International Happiness Institute. The tagline of the
(09:25):
International Happiness Institute is there is no secret to happiness,
but there is a science to it. You can find
Jillian in all social media by looking up Jillian manditchmadic
h Jillian welcomed. It's not therapy. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
I am so happy to be here having this conversation
with you today. No, it was such a joy meeting
you and Barry, so I'm excited to continue the conversation.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
When you say you're happy to be here, that is
literal for you.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
So, I just want to start. You're a happiness expert,
and a lot of the stuff you see a lot
of the things people are drawn to say happiness isn't real.
You shouldn't seek out happiness. You should focus on duty
because that's where real fulfillment lies. But you study the
science of happiness. Let's just start real basic. Is happiness real? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Absolutely? I think so. I have a PhD in health
science and health promotion. Within that health promotion is the
area of focus within health science that I did my PhD.
And the reason I did is because when you look
to data and you compare happy people with less happy people,
happy people have better physical health, so lower rates of
(10:37):
cardiovascular disease, stronger immune systems, they heal faster from injury,
they perform better at work. We see outcomes in terms
of enhanced creativity, problem solving relationships. So it really the
benefits extend beyond just our physical self into every facet
of our life. And so, you know, a lot of
times I think people think that it's a fluffy topic,
(10:58):
but the data is really clear that this is something
that's extremely important. And you know, we talk about our
physical health and things that we can do like sleep
and you know, eat healthy, move our bodies. Another really
big piece of this conversation is is the happiness piece.
It's the sort of the mental health, uh, the side
of the conversation as well.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Yeah, and people are going to think I planned it
this way. I had a primary care physician on last week, Jillian,
talking about exactly what you just said, that there's a
mind body link. And it's interesting that you say happiness
is a big equation. We tend to talk about things
in terms of anxiety and depression. We talk about the
(11:37):
illness aspect of it. We don't talk about the health
aspect of it. We don't think of happiness as a
health thing. One of the first things I said to
you is, I want to talk about this because people
think achievements make you happy. You know, if I make
a million dollars, then I'll be happy. If I start
my own business, then I'll be happy. If I get
elected something, if I win an oscar, if if then
(11:58):
I'll be happy. And it doesn't work that way, does it.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Not at all? And I mean this is a very
common thought pattern because like part of it is we
have to give ourselves grace because were you taught how
to be happy in school growing up? Right? So we
don't know we were not taught. And then you have
like marketing and media and social media sort of telling
us these things, right, this big fancy house or car,
whatever's going to make you happy. But what we know
(12:23):
when we look at the research is that happiness is
not a destination. Right. You don't arrive at happiness and
then you're like set for the rest of your life,
right if you think of Even so, if you're listening
right now, a moment in your life that was really happy.
You don't just extend that feeling for the rest of
your life. It doesn't work like that. So how I
see happiness is instead of seeing it like a destination,
(12:44):
is something that you may or may not arrive at
one day if in the future potentially, I see happiness
as a habit and a practice. And what I mean
by that is, so instead of thinking about happiness like
a destination, if we think about it the same way
we think about physical activity or nutrition. So say after
our chat today, you go to the gym and you
have the best worker of your life, okay, Or if
you're listening right now, you go to the gym and
(13:05):
have the best worker of your life. Would you leave
the gym and take your phone and text your friend
or your partner and say, I just went to the
gym and had the best work out of my life.
I've reached fitness. We would not do that, or nutrition right,
We wouldn't drink a green smoothie for breakfast with like
all the superfoods and then say, Okay, that's great, I've
reached nutritional wellness. Right, It's gonna roll around and we're
(13:26):
gonna get hungry again, right, And so we understand that
if we want to be fit and healthy, we have
to do things on a regular basis to move our body,
choose healthy food, and so happiness is the same way.
It's a practice and it's a habit. And you know,
one of my big pet peeves is when you go
into like a home to course store and they have
all like the little things that have like the little
sayings that you put in your kitchen or your bathroom
(13:48):
or whatever, the one that says choose happy. Because the
reality is, it's not like we wake up in the
morning and we choose our outfit and we choose happy.
Sometimes we may have a moment of just pure luck
of something happiest happens, but the majority of it is
something that we actually have to work at. It's like
a muscle, it's a skill that we need to develop.
And so when we think about happiness like that, what
(14:08):
I love is it's a much more empowering way to
think about happiness because instead of putting our happiness as
contingent on something that may or may not happen in
the future, right that I will be heavy when it
now brings to the question what is something I can
do today? What actions can I take to build my
happiness muscle? And so when we think about it like that,
it really starts to shift the conversation.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Yeah, and I like the way you put that. That
was part of your talk at the Women's Show. I'm like, yeah, yeah,
I hate the green juice because most people drink it
and it makes them miserable. And instead of going, Okay,
what's something healthy that tastes good as opposed to this
thing I'm doing to meet some goal? What is it?
I mean, goal setting is a huge part of it, right,
(14:53):
I say on the show healthy goals are based on
things you can control. And you talked about how this
conditional stuff, basing your happiness on the reactions of other people.
That's I think something that's a mistake a lot of
people make. What's an adaptation that you tell people because
they're like, oh, easy to say, hard to do. What
(15:15):
does this sort of look like, right, flexing that happiness muscle?
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (15:20):
So one, uh, it is impossible to be happy all
the time. And I think that before we go any further,
like to address that. The amount of people that think,
because I study happiness, that I'm happy all the time,
and I'm always like no, no, no, And in fact
there's research. Sometimes it's just sort of referred to as
like the dark side of happiness, or what we see
is that people who try to be happy all of
the time end up being less happy than other people.
(15:43):
So one, we need to give ourselves grace and accept
the fact that we are humans and we have a
lot of emotions. So we can't be happy all the time.
But can we be happier than we are right now? Absolutely?
And so what I think about is certif if you think,
think about your happiness like a muscle. Right, If you
go into the gym and you lift one weight that
(16:04):
your bicep, you do a bicep girl, you don't really
get that much stronger. But if you consistently go to
the gym and put in the reps, over time, you
will get stronger. And that's how happiness works too. So
you do these little micro moments I call them a
happiness throughout the day, and then what happens is over time,
like if you were had a sort of a graph,
your highs will get higher, your happiness will increase. But
(16:25):
then the other piece of it is in life, hard
things happen. You know, job losses happen, divorces happen, the
health issues, pandemics, And so a happy life doesn't mean
like smooth sailing, drinking Margarita's on the beach. A happy
life means that as we start to grow our happiness muscle,
(16:46):
our hies get higher, and the lows are those challenging moments.
It's not that they go away, it's that we become
more resilient and better able to cope with them when
they do. And I think, you know, it's really important
that we start to see happiness, not from this sort
of Pollyanna rose colored glasses thing, but to know that
a lot of our happiness is a skill we have
to put in the reps. We know that frequency of
(17:09):
positive emotions is a much better predictor of your happiness
than intensity. So you want those little things, whether you know.
And the thing about this is, though it's hard to
wrap your mind around it at first, because when you
think about the things that make you happy, usually it's
like the big shiny moments that come to mind, right
the birthday, the trip you just went on, the car
you just bought, whatever it is. But the reality is
(17:31):
if you sort of look and map out your time.
Our day to day life adds up to a lot
more time than those big moments, and so it's a
huge area of opportunity for all of us to start
to cultivate more happiness in our life by focusing on
you know, micro moments.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
I call them.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
I used to call them small moments, but I don't
mean small in terms of impact, right, I mean it
in terms of they don't take a lot of time
or effort. So things like social connection, you know, practicing gratitude,
giving a compliment to a stranger, kindness, spending time with
pets and animals. There's so many ways that you can
sort of ask yourself what are the things that it
(18:10):
do I do that actually bring me joy? And that's
such a great place to start because awareness is the
first step. Right, If you don't know what makes you happy,
no one else is going to be able to tell
you what that is except for you, and we each
have to figure that out for us.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
All. Yeah, that's one thing I've noticed that if you
are attuned to negatives, you ignore the positives, focusing on
the negatives because they're threats. Right. Our brain's first and
foremost that lizard brain, that cave person brain is designed
to keep us safe, not make us happy. Right, So
(18:46):
if you are focused on the threats, if you're focused
on those little micro moments, like for me, it's coffee
in the morning, you know, having that moment to just
smell it, and having the whole room fill with coffee,
smell black coffee, people like you gross, I don't care.
I like it, but having that and it's five minutes, right,
(19:09):
but it's something I can control, I can guarantee is
gonna happen, and it does absolutely nothing but make me happy.
To me, I found that the more I started focusing
on that, I didn't ignore the negatives, but they skewed differently,
right Like, instead of the negative being the thing I
(19:30):
was looking at and the happiness being a distraction, it inverted.
The cool things that happened were my primary focus and
the negatives were now in the peripheral. Is that basically
how your research is said it works.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
Yeah, so I love that you brought this up. What
you're talking about is called the negativity bias. And the
way I think about the negativity bias is it sort
of like pre installed software that came in our brain, right,
It's like you know, when you get a new computer
or a new phone, it has like the pre installed apps,
and then you have to upload or like better ones, right,
like Google Chrome instead of the default browser. So basically,
(20:05):
the negativity bias is our brains tendency, even in the
midst of a lot of good, even if the good
outweighs in number significantly the negative, our tendency is to
focus on the negative. So, for example, if someone received
ten compliments in a day and one person said one
bad thing. When you go home at night, you put
your head on the pillow, you're thinking about that one thing, right,
(20:26):
it's one. It's important to know that it's natural that
it was pre installed in US, and it actually came
from a good place, because if we hit rewind and
go back in history, we actually did have to be
on the lookout for danger all the time, right, We
didn't have the conveniences and the safety of the modern world.
And so what's happened is our brains have not caught
(20:46):
up with the modern world, so we're running outdated software.
And so what you did is exactly what one can
do to override that negativity bias. You start to actually
intentionally focus on the good are to retrain your brain
to look for the good. It's hard at first, but
(21:06):
what we know is that from the psychology behavior change
is that the habit for me at the beginning is
much more difficult. It gets easier over time. So does
that require you having to put a little more attention
and focus and resources into looking for the good? Absolutely,
but over time it starts to get easier. And so,
like you said, like when you think about things that
(21:26):
you're grateful for, or taking time to savor things, or
all of those things, starting to cultivate that habit to
override the brain's negativity bias to sort of like think
about it, like reinstall better software in our brain. Right,
That's something that's really powerful because I think as humans,
we think we're like these logical, rational creatures, right, But
(21:46):
the reality is our brain plays tricks on us all
the time. And so this tendency to focus on the
negative is one of those examples where our brain does
that without even us realizing. And if we want to
do something different, we actually have to in the the
attention focus, take a time, slow it down. But we
(22:07):
do know that when you do that, you can actually
reinstall better software.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
All right, Doctor Jillianmandage, happiness expert, founder of the International
Happiness Institute of Health Science Research. Jillian, I want to
take a break and then come back to that idea
of how to reinstall new software, because, like you said,
it is tough at first. I want this to have
itsine segment. Okay, to hold on for a second. Come
back after the break. Questions, comments, concerns Leanna at not
(22:33):
therapieshow dot com. Not therapy show dot com is the
website at not Therapy Show is social media. We're talking
to doctor Jillianmandage about happiness. It is real and you
can have it when we come back, and it's not therapy.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Stream us live at SAGA nine six am dot C.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. We're back
going to say therapy. I'm still in a cursoner. I'm
still not a therapist. We are still in the interview,
still talking to the absolutely wonderful Jillian Bandage, who studies.
(23:21):
Doctor Jillian Bandage studies the science of happiness, She is
the founder of the International Happiness Institute of Health Science Research,
and we were talking before the break Jillian about how
learning to be happier at first is pretty miserable. And
this sounds counterintuitive, right because change is painful, and this
(23:42):
has gotta be a real challenge for you with people
taking those first steps. That's why, like on this show,
I like to focus on those first steps because the
pleasure pain principle indicates that most people don't change until
continuing where you're going is less painful than making it change.
We often don't change as humans to be happier, We
(24:04):
do it to be less miserable. So that's where I
want to start. You started about the negativity bias and
having to put a lot of work off the top
to overcome this and change habits. So how do people
start to change habits?
Speaker 3 (24:22):
So before we get into how to change habits, just
to take a step back for a second. When we
think about our total capacity for happiness, there's three main players.
So there is genetics, so you can think your parents
are not but your genes play a role in terms
of your capacity for happiness. The second one is environment,
and I think all of us who have lived through
a pandemic in lockdowns, know how environment can affect our mood, right.
(24:44):
And then there's this third piece, and that's the piece
where we have the most autonomy, and that's our thoughts,
our actions, and our habits. And so what we know
from research is when we focus on that third part
our thoughts, our actions, and our habits, and that's where
all of my work and research focuses on, we cannot
only increase our happiness short term, we can actually start
to sustain it at higher levels. So when we think
(25:07):
about these things that we can do to override the
negativity bias and to bring more happiness, if you think
about them as sort of reps, the more that you
do this over time and it becomes a habit, right,
then you can actually be happier like a sustain it
at higher levels. And when we think about, okay, well,
what are some of the things that we can do,
(25:27):
there's so many different things. And I think this is
an important piece of the conversation as well, is that
there's no one size fits all approach to happiness and
it's different for every single person. And not only that,
to make it even more complicated, if you think about
what made you happy when you were like ten years
old versus when you were twenty five, versus fifty versus
one hundred, It changes, right, So learning about our own
(25:50):
happiness is sort of this ongoing iterative process that we
have to answer for ourselfs. So in terms of things
that you like to do, that you enjoy that bring
you happiness, one exercise I often encourage people to do
is what I call happy hunting, And it's really simple.
All you do is you take out a piece of
paper or you can use like the note section in
your phone, and you have two columns or two sections,
(26:11):
depending on if you're on the computer or you're writing
it out, and the one says more happy and the
second one says less happy. And as you go throughout
your day and you do something, put it in which category.
So for example, walking my dog in the morning that
would go in more happy, doing email that would go
less happy. Right, So you do that for your day,
or if you want to get a rich your data set,
(26:32):
you can do it for a couple of days and
then you look at the list and you look at
the things that make you more happy, and then you think, okay,
well there we go. Now I'm starting to learn what
are those things that make me happy and starting to
sort of be aware of them to then start to
include more of that in your life.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
It's funny. I call that similar principle happy math. I
love that if something some total makes you happier, keep
doing it. If something some total makes you a lit
little bit happy now but miserable down the road, well
that's bad. Happy math.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
And I love that.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
I think so many people do do that. They are
so desperate for a short term quick fix, and they
they confuse that sort of rush in the short term
with actual happiness, right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
And to build on the happy math concept too, we
often think what do I have to do to be happy?
What can I do?
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Right?
Speaker 3 (27:30):
And so that list will tell you things that make
you happy. But then the other piece of the math
is subtraction. Right, are there things on my lists that
are not making me happy that I can reduce get
rid of all together? Do less frequency, spend less time
thinking about it if I can't get rid of it, right,
So the both edition and the subtraction really come into
the happy math for people.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
Yeah, and I mean that spend less time thinking about it? Wow,
that's a big topic, right, because we see articles almost
every week now about sleep, and I mean cognitive behavioral
therapy for insomnia actually has its own achron acronym. Now
they've just shortened it to CBTI because it's such a
thing now people hit the pillow and the gremlins start, right,
(28:16):
And this idea that there is something you can do
about that, right, that is not inevitable. You can actually
form better habits so you don't get that galaxy brain,
you don't wind up as you're trying to wind down.
And that idea of we talk about resources in terms
(28:39):
of money, wealth, you know, of all kinds of food,
social capital. We don't think about our thoughts as a resource. Right,
How does somebody spend train themselves form a habit that
they spend less time thinking about the doom?
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Yeah? You know this is hard, to be honest, it's hard,
and I struggle with it myself too. And this is
where we have to give ourself grace to see this
as a practice, not as a perfect And one of
the things that I know for myself is that if
my battery is charged in a lot of ways, so
(29:22):
I've done things to take care of myself. So I've
had a good night's sleep the night before. You know,
I've moved my body, I've eaten healthy food. My capacity
to have sort of more control over stopping the doom
thinking is a lot higher. But if you know you're
stressed out and all of that, it's a lot more difficult.
And so one knowing that right and giving ourselves grace.
(29:43):
So what I do. One of the things is that
sometimes there are really scary things. Like my dog Jocko.
He ended up having bladderstones, but there was a period
where he was urinating blood and we didn't know what
was going on, and so I was really stressed and
justifiably so, right, there are things that are stressful, and
so I would give myself worry time, because you can't
(30:03):
just like pretend like it's not happening. Right, it's scary,
and so I would give myself. I'd set a timer
and I'd be like, Okay, you get to worry for
fifteen minutes, and after that you stop. You can come
back to it later, but it just contains it in
a way that doesn't pretend like nothing's going on, but
doesn't let it overcome and consume twenty four hours in your.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Day yeah, that legit works. People listening, they think, what
I can't do that, No, you can't. That's actually really
it works, and it stops that it actually does. Let
your brain know you're gonna get a moment for this.
I hear you. I'm recognizing the issue, but we're gonna
do this on my schedule, not yours, right, yep, yeah, yep.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
And the other thing too, is that, like I think
that it's it's paradoxically when we start to lean into
those things that we stop forcing ourselves to try to
I'm doing like air quotes and the word shit being right,
like we're humans. And so the other thing that I
do sometimes is like I have a tendency to like
and I'm sure people listening maybe can relate. You know,
(31:10):
you have one thought and then your mind spirals to
like the point that the world is ending or you're dying, right,
and so my brain goes to extremes to catastrophizing, right,
is it what they would the term that it is?
And so what I'll do is I'll do a thought
experiment and be like, Okay, so what if this happens
then what then?
Speaker 2 (31:27):
What then? What?
Speaker 3 (31:27):
You just keep going deeper into like the worst that
you allow your brain to go through all of that,
and eventually you sort of see that a lot of
it is just the fear that you're putting in your head.
And when you start to say it out loud and
express the emotions and the things that you're scared about,
what we see is that it sort of loosens the
emotional grip that it's.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Happening on you.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
You know, it doesn't take it away, but it does
loosen it because you're labeling it. Labeling emotions can be
really powerful or feelings or fears.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Yeah, And it's amazing nowadays how many people have feelings
they can't name, they can identified, they think it's bad,
so they're just gonna not look at it. And we
know that emotional vocabulary is really important to emotional processing
and even feeling, both the good and bad feelings. Yes, right.
And with men it seems to be things like fear
(32:18):
or vulnerability that they just can't feel stunted in childhood
when they were told look after your mother at the
age of eight. With women, it's anger and or even
like you said, you know, the live laugh love pillow crowd.
I dunk on them a lot, but I do think
it's true if you need to remind yourself to live, laugh,
(32:39):
and love, what is going on there? They don't focus
on the emotions they've considered bad. And like you've said,
we need a full range of emotions. Nobody is happy
all the time. And when you feel it and you
name it and you work through it, the negative emotion
(33:00):
goes in its proper place. When we stop that process,
it's like getting stuck, something stuck in our emotional throat, right,
mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
So how do people learn to feel their feelings? Because
there is a science to that too. We know that
emotions manifest in the body, and manifest is a woou term,
but like we experience it. We get headaches, we get
upset stomachs, we feel nauseous, We can even get a
sore throat from stress. How do people start feeling and
identifying their feelings?
Speaker 3 (33:30):
Yeah, you know, you hear this all the time. People
say feel your feelings, feel your feelings, and it's like, okay,
what does that mean?
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Right? Right?
Speaker 3 (33:36):
And so I think that part of it is starting
to develop some self awareness or some interroception, like looking
how you feel. So sometimes like for example, if you're
feeling anxious, right, if I be like, okay, take a
breath and just check in with your body, do a
quick body scan. What are you noticing? Maybe your heart
(33:56):
rate feels like it's racing a little bit faster, Maybe
your palms feel sweaty, maybe you feel like you're on edge.
Like I notice for myself that I'll if I scan
my body, that I'm clenching my jaw or like that.
If I in hell, I could really relax my shoulders.
But I didn't even realize that I was holding that
tension in my body. And so you start to notice,
(34:17):
like what are the things that my body is doing
right now? And then there's sort of two pieces to it.
There's the feeling the feeling, but then there's also the
like how do you navigate that in your body piece?
And so one of the things that I do is
like I'll do like a breathing exercise, because when you
can start to calm your physiology, it starts to calm
(34:37):
your mind as well. And so sometimes when you can't
get a grip, the best thing to do is start
by changing your body, because we know how to do that.
So something as simple as like some breath work. One
of my favorite ones is you take a big inhale,
you pause for a second, and then you take like
another inhal so you don't exhale, so it's almost like
you take a breath, hold it and then try to
(34:59):
suck a little bit more and then a long, slow
exhale and I'll do that minimum three, you know whatever,
five times and just by doing that, you can feel
the physiology start to relax in your body a little bit.
And I love this because it can be done anywhere,
it doesn't cost anything, it's not difficult, and a lot
(35:20):
of times for me, I'll notice if I start to spiral,
it's because my body is feeling really tense. And then
by stopping my body, I stop my mind a little
bit and it doesn't the spiral doesn't get so bad
because you're changing interrupting the physiology before you even get
to the psychology.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Yeah, that is science, and that's why we had doctor
Jillian Manditch on doctor Jillian g I L L I
A and Mandage M A N D C H. I'm
saying this because that's how you can reach her on
social media. Jillian, you are everywhere. How do people get
in touch with you? Find out where you're speaking, I
stumbled on you, Okay, well I stumbled on Jocko and
(35:59):
that's how I met you. And Jocko is truly adorable.
But how do people find out what you're doing? Because
you're all over the place.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
The best place to stay in touch with me is
social media Instagram primarily trying to get better at LinkedIn.
It's not going so great. Ye, And my website is
Jillianmandage dot com and there's a contact page there so
if anyone has questions or anything, that contact page comes
in as well.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
So yeah, and you've got some really cool resources on
the International Happiness Institute as well. Jillian, thanks so much
for coming on the program and giving some people some
first steps regarding a happier life.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
Thank you so much for having me. Really to be
able to share the science of happiness and have this
conversation that I did with you today that was so
rich and so thought provoking and helpful is such a privilege.
So I want to thank you for the work that
you do, for having me on and yeah, just thank you.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
All right, when we come back is promised off the top.
I'm going to give you three things, three categories of
things you can do starting right now to be happier.
These things really really work when we come back, questions, comments,
concerns Leanna at not Therapyshow dot com. Not therapyshow dot
com is the website at not Therapy Show. Is the
(37:12):
socials be back with happiness. It's real and you can
have it. I'll tell you how after the break.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
Stream US live at SAGA nine sixty am dot CA.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot ca. We're back in.
It's not therapy. I'm still Leanna Kerzner. I'm still talking
happiness is still not a therapist. I'm still flying the
(37:48):
Canadian pride. Yeah, it's all real, you can have it.
Off the top of the show, I went, yeah, Canada, right.
I promise to tell you everything you can do to
start being happier right now, and I'm gonna make good
on that promise. Okay. Thing one that you can do
(38:10):
to start being happier right now is accept reality. Accept
reality all of reality. No filtering out the good parts
to feed a misery. Narrative and obviously top ten phrase,
ignoring negatives isn't being positive. If you can't see the
good parts of your life right now, right now, no
(38:32):
amount of achievement in the future will make you happy,
because every time you achieve something, you'll dismiss the good
parts of that and only focus on how hard it
was to get there. Now, why, No, if I accomplish
things all feel happy? No, you won't, because you've been
training yourself all along to dismiss the good and only
(38:56):
focus on the bad parts. And it may be because
you think, oh, you're jinxing yourself, you're setting yourself up
for a fall by actively enjoying good moments. But it's
very important to live in reality, all of reality, which
means giving yourself credit for what you do right, as
(39:20):
well as checking yourself for what you do wrong. You
cannot effectively and healthily have one without the other. It
doesn't matter what's going on. You can take little moments,
that first sip of morning coffee or enjoying a really
good meal or a nice sunny day. You know taking
(39:43):
those moments will help your overall level of happiness. Your
cat does something goofy that's happy, Enjoy that somebody else's
cat does something goofy on the internet. That's great. Enjoy
that we're working on putting some cat videos up on
the social media. You're right now, these are moments, that's
all they are, nothing more. You don't have to tie
(40:05):
them into a larger narrative. Just take the happy Now.
What you focus on is what your brain is going
to flag as more relevant information going forward. That is
part of what you know I referred to as happy
math in the interview with Jillian Understanding. This is part
(40:26):
of what's called mindfulness by the mental health industry. But
I think this whole thing actually requires an additional degree
of storytelling, involving accepting reality, like living in reality, because
everyone's life has ups and downs. You know, a song
into each life submarine mustful, You know that one. There's
(40:48):
three basic stories you can tell yourself about life'sops and downs.
Story one, the good times they don't ast? Story two?
Who the bad times? Ah, they don't last. Story three
Neither the good times nor the bad times last. Sounds
(41:10):
like an eighties pop song, doesn't it. Option three is
obviously the most complete and accurate and pop song. Ye
right it Yeah? Good times temporary, bad times temporary. That's
not a reason to do nothing to improve your circumstances.
(41:31):
It's just accepting reality right now. If you take that
third narrative, neither the good times nor the bad times last,
and you add it to my top ten phrase, ignoring
negatives isn't being positive? Well, what you arrive at is,
instead of trying to convince yourself that things don't suck
(41:53):
to put on a happy face, you know don't. What
can you focus on that's with in your control right
now to make things suck a little less. There is
something I guarantee you, and this is where the hard
but rewarding work really begins. And it's the second thing
(42:16):
you can do to be happier right now. Second thing
you can do to be happier right now, own your choices. Yep, again,
big cliche, but here's the stuff it will tell you.
Owning your choices is so very difficult and painful at first,
like no joke. You feel like you're dying and everything
(42:37):
is your fault. How does this make you happier? I'm
getting to that. We talk about boundaries a lot, but
most of that talk is empty. Not many people are
really good at boundaries because it's just much easier in
the short term to fall into the you made me.
I had no choice. I was just fighting back, punching up,
(42:57):
stopping the flow of fentanyl. Yeah, I had to sneak
that one, right it. Elbows up, yeah, elbows up nah. Nah.
In all those situations, people made choices, right. We start
off life defining ourselves entirely by the reactions of our parents,
and it's a real challenge to mature and evolve beyond that.
(43:18):
Most of us spend our lives more worried about the
opinions and actions of others than our own sense of
well being. We let people hurt us because we're afraid
if we don't, they'll hurt us worse. Again. Changing this
is hard, but in order to be happier, we have
to change that, because when you start noticing all the
(43:38):
unnecessary putdowns that come your way from people who allegedly
love you, well, it hurts a lot, and in order
to be happier, some of those people may have to go.
You shouldn't feel like an annoying burden to the people
around you, and it takes some examination to figure out
whether that message is internal, external, or combination of both.
(44:01):
Now it's likely a combination of both, because you know,
if you weren't made to feel like an annoying burden
as a child, you're far less likely to take it
and dish it out as an adult. It doesn't seem
normal unless you got it as a kid. Normal isn't healthy.
If the people around you care more about explaining why
they said something that hurt you than listening to the
(44:24):
fact that it hurt you and trying to find a
better way to communicate, that is going to negatively impact
your happiness. Owning that you are choosing to stay in
those situations is a big part of deciding whether the
benefits of those relationships outweigh the pain or choosing to
leave the relationship. Most of us do have a lot
(44:45):
more choices than we realize. We've been separated from them
by a ton of you know, subtle or not subtle,
emotional abuse that doesn't have to be forever. Would you
want someone to just be hurt by the the things
you say and not tell you no, then why do
you think you're expected to just suck up those hurts?
(45:09):
Flip side? Are you a person who takes it well
when someone says something is bothering them? Are you sure
really be the person you'd want to have that conversation
with from the other side. How would you want someone
to react when you came to them and said, look
that thing you're doing, it's hurting my feelings. How would
(45:32):
you want them to react? Be the person you'd want
to go to. And that's easier if you do the
third thing that can make you happier right now, too, ding,
and that is third thing. Seek the good. Seek the good,
set healthy goals based on things you can control. Make
sure your expectations aren't set too low, too low, or
(45:56):
too high. Do some things just for the fun of them.
Be around good people more, be around bad people less.
Dump the transactional friendships, and prioritize real human connection. Not
every blanket thing has to be networking. My god, that's
a path to misery. Stop consuming content that tells you
how bad everything is, especially dating. Oh Lord, All consuming
(46:20):
that stuff is going to do is make you feel
helpless and hopeless. Focus on what you can control, not
what you can't control. And again, be the person you'd
want as a best friend, as a partner, as a manager,
and as a coworker. Instead of waiting for people to
show you kindness and respect before you extend it. The
(46:44):
world reflects back to you what you put into it.
But again, you wouldn't want your best friend, partner, manager,
or coworker to be making themselves miserable for you, So
don't make yourself miserable for other people expecting them to
(47:04):
come along and save you from it. Again. Boundaries, self care, mindfulness,
live in reality, accept reality, own your choices, seek the good,
don't people please in a search for people control. Now,
I knowingly did a show on happiness at a time
when a lot of people aren't feeling it because of
(47:26):
the news, because of everything that's going on, because of
instability and insecurity. And if you're not feeling happy right now,
I didn't do this show to make you feel bad,
right It's okay. If you are feeling something like scared
or angry or sad, that's okay. We have all these
(47:48):
feelings for a reason. But it's very important that you
check in and name your feelings so you know what
you're feeling. Because we don't make the best choices when
we're angry or scared or sad, right we tend to
go into fight or flight freeze fon fight or flight mode,
(48:09):
so recenter. Check out at not Therapy Show Online, we
are putting up cat videos to help with your happy Yes,
videos of my cats are up there. Otherwise, questions, comments,
concerns Leanna at nottherapyshow dot com. Not Therapy Show is.
Not Therapy show dot com is the website. You're crazy
is only a problem if it's hurting you. Hang in there.
Speaker 1 (48:34):
Stream us live at SAGA nine six am dot CA.
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