Unapologetically Marie

Writer, podcaster, mental health advocate

Happiness Blog

5 Steps to Surviving Self Isolation and Working From Home

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How to Avoid Loneliness and Maintain Resiliency During Corona Virus Self Isolation

Have you been asked to work from home indefinitely? Are you wondering how you’re going to survive self isolation? Due to the Corona virus, around the world, wherever possible and practical, workers are being told to work from home for the indefinite future.

Overall, this should be good news with workers generally valuing the flexibility that technology has enabled, particularly if they have childcare commitments and long commute times. Other benefits of working from home include greater working time autonomy, better work–life balance and higher productivity.

But current research also shows that working from home can have negative consequences, leading to decreased wellbeing and mental health. And while introverts might be cheering with joy, for people who get their energy from others, and who love the daily interaction with their colleagues, enforced isolation can feel like jail time.

With the Corona virus leading to more people self-isolating or working from home, not only once or twice a week, but every work day for an indefinite period, it’s important to understand the possible risks and give ourselves the best chance of making it through the next few weeks (and months!?). Here’s what you need to know and your steps to surviving self isolation.

5 Steps to Surviving Self Isolation and Working From Home

1. Manage clear work-life boundaries

When working from home, it’s easy to blur the lines between work hours and home time. This explains why a United Nations report1 found that 25 percent of office workers reported high stress levels compared to 41 per cent of remote workers. Workers who work from home can easily check their emails while making breakfast, or in the evenings after putting the kids down, but the research shows that ‘always on’ mentality can take a toll on your mental health and stress levels. So set your work hours, and only work during those hours.

2. Make an extra effort to speak to co-workers – social media won’t cut it

While you might appreciate the increase in productivity that comes with not being interrupted by your colleagues, you might also come to miss the small interactions and socialising that come with the office environment. Quite simply, spending all day every day at home can get lonely.

A recent study by health insurer Cigna found that three in five Americans (61 per cent) reporting that they were lonely. The study also revealed that heavy social media users were significantly more likely to feel alone, isolated, left out and without companionship.2 During this time of isolation, it’s important to maintain relationships and social interactions, particularly if you’re an extrovert, to avoid becoming lonely. When it comes to maintaining and building relationships with your colleagues, email, messaging apps and social media just won’t cut it. Instead, make an effort to speak to your colleagues on the phone, or even better via video conference. While you’re at it, call your mum (and any elderly relatives who might be at stuck at home) too.

3. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should increase your unpaid hours

If you’re stuck at home and can’t go out, you might be thinking you may as well just do some extra hours of work. The United Nations report1 from 2017 showed that it’s actually not uncommon for people who work from home to start working longer hours than needed. From Japan and the US to Argentina, India and Spain, work-from-home workers tend to work longer hours over and above regular working hours compared to office-based workers. Don’t do it! Set your hours and stick to them (See point # 1)

4. Don’t forget to exercise

If you’re not leaving your home, you may also not be getting your regular exercise. Even if you’re not a gym junkie, the incidental exercise you get from walking to the train or bus, walking across the road for a morning coffee, going to meetings or walking outside for our lunch break are all important. The benefits of exercise and movement to our mental health cannot be overstated, and it doesn’t take much to get your blood flowing. Set an alarm to remind you to get up from your chair and do some simple stretches and exercises a few times a day. Even better, why not replace your usual commute time with this beginners 20-minute at home exercise plan?

5. Do something for you

Are you stuck at home by yourself all day and night? Why not turn self-isolation into an opportunity to focus on you. Being alone – when done right – can have positive mental health benefits. The research shows that prioritising ‘me time’ makes people happier and more creative. Russian researchers investigated the phenomenon of positive solitude, where people choose to spend time alone for contemplation, reflection or creativity. They found that being alone leads to more positive emotions, like relaxation and calm, and having a greater sense of pleasure and meaning. So, dust off that DIY or art project you’ve been meaning to tackle or check out these 3-steps to being alone.

The key to surviving self isolation is to find creative ways to maintain your physical and mental health habits and social bonds. Don’t forget to make it fun!

And one final tip for mental health during these unprecedented times: limit your news consumption and only read or watch reputable sources. It doesn’t help anxiety levels to over-consume overhyped and sometimes downright alarmist news about the Corona virus.

References

  1. Eurofound and the International Labour Office (2017), Working anytime, anywhere: The effects on the world of work, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, and the International Labour Office, Geneva.
  2. Cigna. “Cigna Takes Action To Combat The Rise Of Loneliness And Improve Mental Wellness In America.” Cigna Press Release. 23 January 2020. https://www.cigna.com/newsroom/news-releases/2020/cigna-takes-action-to-combat-the-rise-of-loneliness-and-improve-mental-wellness-in-america, accessed February 2020.

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The Secret to Living Longer

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Do you Want to Live a Long and Healthy Life?

Life expectancy has increased significantly over the past century, and as a result the world’s population is aging. In fact, in the US alone more than 70,000 baby boomers expected to retire every single week until 2030!

Since we haven’t worked out how to stop time yet, living longer is great news for all of us, but unfortunately it doesn’t follow that we’ll all be healthy and have good quality of life as we age.

In fact, along with the increase in the aging population, we’re also seeing a rapid increase in the prevalence of chronic diseases such as diabetes and cancer.

However, a 20-year study of more than 111,000 people has found that a healthy lifestyle could increase your chances of living a healthy and longer life by up to ten years for women and seven years for men. The study looked at how people could live free of diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer.

The Secret to Living Longer

Previous studies have shown that smoking, inactivity, poor diet and heavy alcohol consumption contribute to up to 60 per cent of premature deaths and up to 18 years’ loss in life expectancy.

This latest study however assigned a ‘healthy lifestyle score’ based on five lifestyle factors—diet, smoking, physical activity, alcohol consumption, and body mass index (BMI). The good news is that you can influence these five lifestyle factors to increase your chances of living a healthy and long life. The more you are better at maintaining, the better your score.

  1. Healthy Diet: Eating a healthy diet means including a variety of food groups (to make sure you’re still getting all the nutrients and vitamins you need!), good portion control, eating plenty of fresh healthy foods instead of processed and packaged foods, limiting (or eliminating) unhealthy fats and sugar.
  2. Don’t Smoke or Quit Smoking: Obviously, it’s better if you’ve never smoked. But if you’re a smoker, the research also shows that quitting at any point in your life gives you a better shot and repairing the damage it’s done to you. So, the sooner you quit, the better.
  3. Do Regular Physical Activity: You should aim to do moderate to vigorous physical activity for more than 30 minutes a day. If you are not used to doing exercise, this can take some time to build up to. Check out the ‘No Excuses’ Beginners Exercise Plan to get yourself started.
  4. Limit Excessive Alcohol Consumption: It’s OK to have a glass of wine with dinner every now and then, but we’re talking about cutting out regular and excessive consumption here. For women, try to keep your consumption below 5-15 g/day and for men below 5-30 g/day.
  5. Maintain a Good BMI : Your BMI, or body mass index, is a measurement that is used to assess whether you are in a healthy weight range. Unfortunately, obesity is a major limit to life expectancy. If you follow a healthy diet and do regular exercise, this should be relatively easy to maintain (all other health considerations aside). You should aim to have a body mass index of between 18.5-24.9. Check out the Heart Foundation’s BMI calculator to see where you measure up.

Living longer is only worth it if you can enjoy it! So set up some good habits and plan for health and balance in your life.

And remember, it’s OK to occasionally fall off the wagon, it happens to us all. Just remember to get up, dust yourself off, and get back on again (without any judgement)!


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Exercise & how to Prioritise it in a Busy Work Week with Dade Bailey (E10)

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Happiness for Cynics podcast

There have been hundreds, probably thousands, of studies into the positive effects of regular exercise, so there’s no way we could do a podcast on happiness and not cover exercise. This week, our guest, Dade Bailey, talks about the importance of exercise to your happiness and resiliency and offers some tips for how to speak to your boss about having balance.

Transcription

You’re listening to the podcast happiness for cynics. I’m Marie Skelton. I’m a change and resilience writer and speaker. You can find me at www.marieskelton.com. My co host is Peter Furness, and today he has the day off because we have a fabulous guest with us. So on to today’s episode, which is all about exercise.

[intro music]

M: Today we’re going to talk about exercise. There have been hundreds, probably thousands, of studies into the positive effects of regular exercise. It leads to better moods, decreased stress, more mental resilience, more confidence, more energy and I could keep going on. But in short, there is no way we could do a podcast on happiness and not cover exercise. So this week I’m excited to welcome our guest today, Dade Bailey, who has had a very successful career in the corporate world but who also recently retrained as a personal trainer.

So you’ve had a very successful career with some big Australian brands?

DB: Absolutely.

M: But there’s more to you than your professional career. So let’s cut to the chase. You’re buff. [Hehe]  

DB: Right, thanks.

[Laughter]

DB: Yes. Okay. So, yes, it took a long time for me to get there.

M: So can you just start with telling me and listeners, how much time do you spend working out or doing exercise each week? And what do you do?

DB: Well, look, I think for me, just given a bit of reflection is that I always wanted to get to this point of being able to look in the mirror and go ‘Yeah I look good, I feel great, I’ve got a healthy balance and it took a very big mind shift to get there. I thought by throwing myself into the gym left, right and centre without kind of understanding how my body works was massive [and] I’d achieve those results. And it wasn’t, never got the results that I thought I was going to get. For me, I did the gym I’ve been with 14 years called Hiscoes in Surrey Hills. Such a great gym. But I did like a challenge with them. They really gave me the understanding of how muscle groups were, how nutrition needs to work, how building good longevity strength really would help. And that would kind of help me set my mindset to where I got to. So I didn’t need to train stupidly, all the time. I had to really think around, well how do I make sure my body is recovering? How am I making sure I’m doing the right kind of exercises to get maximum strength, not kicking it out for, like, two hours in a gym. [Doing] 45 minutes each times that it really was researching that kind of structure and really diving into that helped me then continue to get better and improve my form, improve my physique in a very healthy way.

M: So tell me, weekly, what do you do now?

DB: Weekly now, because I now work at a gym as well as a personal trainer I’m there a lot, which I did not realize how much more exercise you do what because you’re working with clients all the time, which is always good. But from my own personal point of view, I’m there about four or five times a week for my own personal training. But that’s a variety of different things that could be any kind of conditional strength training, that could be some high intensity training, but also it could be just something like some stress relief of like going to kick the crap out of boxing bag, or just going to do some yoga for active recovery. I really love Pilates – reformer Pilates – so that’s really good. So four to five times a week because rest is so important as well. You’ve got to be able to allow your body just to be able to relax and also from a mental health point of view it helps really clarify, like you’ve done your exercise, take a break. And that really brings it home for me is like you do need to rest take that time.

M: I think there’s a few things you said in there. Firstly, right off the bat, you mentioned balance and how you use this to balance your corporate life.

DB: Absolutely.

M: Secondly, you mentioned food, and what you’re eating and putting in your body. And then thirdly, you mentioned mental health there. How do you find those different elements work together for you? Or are they important that you’re considering, you know, the food you put in your body, the exercise you doing your mental health and balancing all of that?

DB: I think being in the corporate world for such a long time, exercise is always my outlet from a personal point of view, and going to the gym either in the morning set me up for the day to really start my day off well, so from a mental health point of view, it was like, ‘I’m up, I’m ready, I’m walking in the office ready to take on the day. I’m feeling good. I’ve got all these endorphins happening. It’s great. Fantastic. But then also if I was then going to eat an egg and bacon sandwich every day, and not really balancing out the food, I wasn’t really complimenting my training as well. So what really started to interest me which everyone needs to find entertaining in the gym when I was doing my diets and those kind of things was that it was actually bringing a really nice balance. But I could see in others as well around, “Are you exercising?”  “No, I don’t exercise.” It’s like, well how, how do you bring your best self to work every day if you’re not really looking after internal? And that’s a lot of nutrition. Are you eating right? Are you sleeping, right? So for me all three really compliment looking after a team. And when I worked with the teams with that I was able and honoured to be able to lead within the organization, it was also instead of just having a meeting, let’s go and have a walk and talk. Let’s do some exercise at the same time. Hey, let’s go and have a nice healthy lunch and have our one-on-one or let’s and it’s really bringing that experience I’ve been able to do which is now fortunate I’ve become a personal trainer and I know a lot more about the sciences behind it. I think me going back into the corporate world is really going to help me as a leader to help my team thrive, get the best out of their work, and also make sure that they are… because if they’re outside eating crap, and they’re not exercising, are they bring their best selves? Probably not because of the balances that they have.

M: Sure. Okay, can you help us understand how you first got involved or how you found that passion? A lot of people join gyms and never go back or go to one or two classes and never go back. And we hear all the stories and a lot of us, me included, have signed up for gyms and really wasted our money. How did you find that spark or that passion to begin with?

DB: Part of me, it’s the stubbornness within. I think for me, though, I’ve always expected for me somebody to ring my doorbell and go, “Hey, here’s the abs that you wanted.”

[Laughter]

M: Wouldn’t that be great?! Sign me up.

DB: Wouldn’t that be great. Order them online, they just arrive. And I’m like, do you know what, there was a challenge at the gym it was an eight week strength challenge and I’m like, you know what, for eight weeks, I will commit. And it was just like this is a short amount of time and really commit and for me it was the go, really just see what you can do and what it will help and do that. And even by week four of the eight week, I was seeing so many different changes in my body, how I was sleeping, how I was motivating myself. I changed myself from not being a morning person to being a morning person, which was just…

M: That’s huge.

DB: It’s huge. Like, I never used to be out of bed. I used to wake up and just go to work, but now I wake up at like 5:30 in the morning, quite happily.

M: What?! Okay, I need your secret.  [Laughter] We’ll get to that in a second. 

DB: But I think for me, it was the, you’ve got to be able to help yourself and that was the mindset thing. It’s like you’re the only one who’s going to be accountable here. Nobody’s gonna, like you can, you’ve got personal trainers that will help you, but it’s also “Where’s your commitment in this?” And I had to owe that to myself. If I think longevity, I need to do more for me now than I ever needed to do. And I’ve got to think of my life in the future and understanding the body so much more has really helped me kind of think, okay, I’m sore today, I’ve done some workout, how, how do I recover from that? So it’s really helped me think around that because the physicality of it also affects your mental health as well. So if you’re not feeling fine all the time, it really affects how your day progresses.

M: Yeah. So a lot of us are spending long, long hours in the corporate world, right. And last year, in particular, the world’s started to take notice of burnout. So World Health Organization called it a global epidemic, and it’s becoming harder and harder to say, no, in the corporate world. How do you… What advice would you give to people to make sure they can find the balance in their life? To fit in exercise

DB: Yeah, I think just from a personal point of view, after 14 years of working in an organization that the scale and the complexity that I did, I was really, I was burnt out. And I’ve taken the time out, to do some of the things I wanted to do, like become a personal trainer, which is amazing. But the corporate world is relentless, and it’s nonstop. And you have to find those moments to find that balance. For me, as a leader in an organization, it was making sure that people came to work and they had a balanced life outside of work was my priority, because if they were wandering in and they didn’t have that balance, they weren’t able to perform at work. So for me, them, making sure that they could do work flexibly if they wanted or being able to prioritize going to the gym classes that they wanted, or Hey, there’s a yoga class at four. Go to it. You can. I know you’ll work to make up the hours, not putting restrictions on the old way of working of, “I need to see you at your desk from nine to five, and you need to produce X amount of widgets.” It’s like: here are the outcomes that you need to achieve. I expect that you’re an adult and you’re able to achieve them. I will give you like, accountability to do that. And yeah, of course, we’ll talk about how’s the kids “Oh, well I need to do this and this, “you work how you want.” And by giving people that freedom enabled them to be able to bring more of themselves to work and they were honest with me going, “I’m going through a tough time with this happening at home.” Okay, cool, at least I’m aware. But at least that kind of relationship really helped people bring everything they can to the office, and I, I created teams that thrived. And that’s where I’m always very proud of those moments. Because for me, if I’m running a team and they’re not living their best life outside of work, they’re not going to enjoy coming to work every day.

M: Absolutely. So obviously we all wish we had a boss like you. Were there any points in your life where you had bosses that didn’t subscribe to this idea? And how did you deal with explaining that you need to take time for yourself in order to be better for the organization or for your boss?

DB: There’s a few, there’s an example that comes up straight away where I had a boss who was very micromanagement. And it really pushed my buttons. And in the end, I was like to manage the micro manager I had to manage back. Okay, you want to know everything I’m doing? Here is a task list. Here’s everything I’m doing. You want to see that I’ve done all these tasks? Awesome. So for me, it was taking back because instead of them controlling me, I had to take control of them. But also give them honest feedback. And I’m like, can I just ask why you need to know this level of detail? And sometimes people are just a bit afraid of the boss.  And ask. Well, why don’t you just ask the question, what’s this to achieve? What’s the outcome? Because for me, that kind of open and honest communication doesn’t happen enough in the corporate world. We’re living in a world where, oh no I’ve been told to do this so I’ve got to do it. And people need to ask the question “why” a lot more.

M: Yep

DB: Why? Why are we doing this? I need to ask the silly question, because I need to believe in anything that I’m doing. And working with bosses in that way, it’s like, you tell me a vision and how this is going to happen. I’ll believe you, I will follow you as a leader. If you don’t sell me as to the why we’re doing something, I’m not going to be giving it 100%. And I think for me, in some of the areas I was in, I had to really ask, why are we doing this? Why do you want me to be passionate about it? And I know you sometimes you get told you have to do it. But that for me, doesn’t give me motivation to do my job. Yeah. And I’m very much around I need a purpose.

M: Yeah. And I think the research shows most of us do. Okay, so, have there been any times since you first started including exercise in your life on a regular basis that you haven’t been able to exercise, and have there been any ties to – or have you noticed any ties to – your mental health and your resiliency?

DB: Absolutely. When in high delivery times, if I don’t get sleep and I don’t get to the gym in the morning and I go straight to work. I can sense my productivity levels. I’m wandering in, I don’t feel energized wandering in, it takes me about two hours to get going. And people are bombarding me with questions over there. And it is peaks and troughs, especially when you’re in delivery mode. But it’s being able to make sure you find that time and make sure that you are saying no, this is important. And the reason for that is that I won’t have two hours of wasted time as I wander in. And making sure you have the conversation as to why it’s important with your leaders to go, this is me, this is why I need to do this. This is going to be better for you. But also making sure my team had exactly the same kind of opportunities to go not it’s a priority for you. If this is what makes you happy if it’s making sure you’re dropping the kids off or going to swim class with the kids. I make sure that that time is available because for me, that is how you make effective teams,  

M: mm hhmm.

DB: because you’re balancing that out. But for me, I could tell from a mental health point of view that when I was at one of the biggest complex change programs I was leading to deliver IT experiences to the whole organization, it was consuming so much of my time. I then started to see my drinking habits go up, that then made me sleep more, and made me not get up in the morning, that made me not get to the gym. So I will have to go to a checkpoint on myself and go “hang on what’s happening here? How you’re going to get control?” And it was that… I actually did a kind of put me at the centre and what actually makes me happy overall, like bringing things back to me. Me is flexible working, … gym work, making sure I’ve got nutrition, making sure I’ve got balanced kind of time for with my friends, and how what’s disappeared from that. How do I get it back? And most of it was like, well, I’m allowing work to take over my personal gym time, I can’t have that happen. I’m not getting an hour to do my nutrition like I cook on a Sunday night, Sunday for the food for the week, why are you not doing that? Like that sets you up for the week. But instead, you’re actually going to work, you’re eating crap food, because it’s not what actually you want, but it’s convenient. So I really had to look at and put myself under the microscope and go, what makes you happy on a day to day basis from the outside of work. And what is work affecting of those pillars?

M: I think it’s such an irony that when we’re needed most at work, we let down all the other areas of our life that keep us healthy for work.

DB: But it’s also the ability for a leader to see that in their people. And for me now coming into a personal training side is I think I’m rounding out my skills in a very different way. Because it will be a very much well what makes you, you outside of work? Is it exercise? Is it nutrition? How are you balancing yourself out? And how as a leader, can I help that outside work operate well? What blockers do I need to remove to help free that up so you come into this office skipping?

M: Yeah, absolutely. So can I ask you since you have been training and doing your certifications, what are some tips that you can leave for listeners who are just starting out on their exercise journey?

DB: Ask questions of anyone in that gym. There are such… there’s so much knowledge… even though I’ve been going to this gym…. I’ve had the same personal trainer since day dot and he’s just so full of knowledge over how bodies work, how you sleep, how there’s so much knowledge that they have. Learn from them and really ask questions. They want to be asked and if you have a question over I don’t know how to find some motivation or I don’t know what I should be doing, ask them because if they don’t know, they’ll know somebody who can help you.

M: Yep

DB: Don’t be afraid to ask in any kind of exercises moment say, I don’t know how to do this, please help me. A lot of people don’t do stuff because they have a fear that they may look silly or in front of other people they may go “oh no, they look really fit.” Everybody’s there to help you. And yes, there are some people in gyms that are all there posing in front of mirrors or at the other end of the spectrum where they’re like, “Oh, my God, you had an alcoholic beverage, the world is ending.” But it’s more, use the facilities and everyone’s there to better themselves. You’re all there for the same reasons, you’re there for health reasons, or want to look better for your wedding that’s coming up, or something like that. And there are people in that gym, with so many skills to bear to help you achieve that. Don’t be afraid.

M: Yeah. For someone who’s new to a gym. I know when I was I think I first went to a gym when I was 13 or 14 and those machines look bloody scary. Right, when you first walk in… I don’t know if you remember going, “Oh my gosh, how do these work?” and we’ve all seen the YouTube videos of people not using them well. So would you recommend maybe taking a class to get started versus going straight for the weights equipment? 

DB: So a couple of things that I’d recommend: most gyms overall should have some kind of, as you join a gym, some kind of introductory, they should do a fitness assessment with you as soon as you walk in. Like how are you setting off as a baseline? Let’s do some measurements. Let’s do some weights and height [measurements]. Let’s make sure you can know what your goals are, what do you want to achieve, and then any good gym will sit down and help you design a program and not only help you design a program to help you start to achieve that, but also show you how to use that equipment. And the other point is, is that there are the free weights where a lot of experienced people use the free weights and the dumbbells and things like that. But there’s the ones where the machines that what we call the pin machines, they are built to help you ensure you’re doing your form correctly, they always have a little illustration on them as how to do it properly. If you’re not.. don’t have the confidence to talk to someone, so just have a read of that it will tell you exactly what to do. And it will really make sure your form is correct. And if you don’t know how to, if you look at a machine and go “I have no idea,” just go and ask reception or asked one of the trainers because they honestly want you to use the gym to its maximum ability and they want their product to be used and for you to get the best results.

M: Is there anything I haven’t asked you that you want to add before we go?

DB: I think in summary it’s finding balance overall. I think you can go to an extreme, like you can go right I’m going to just like throw everything at exercise, but you’ve got to also remember, your body needs fuel for that exercise. And if you’re not complementing it with the great nutrition and you’re not complementing it with great sleep, and you’re not coping it with a mental of going outside and enjoying life, you need to look at where your factors of your life you really are important to you, and then see how you get balanced across them. Because sometimes people put too much on one thing, “I’m going to go on a massive restrictive diet, which will make me unhappy.” And it’s like, well, those diets that fad diets when actually just if you’ve really focused on true nutrition, and good exercise, it brings balance in itself.

Marie: Okay, thank you for your time.

DB: Awesome. Thank you.

M: Thanks for joining us today. If you want to hear more, please remember to subscribe and like this podcast and if you’re in Sydney you can find Dade at Hiscoes gym in Surrey Hills. Just go to his hiscoes.com.au that’s h-i-s-c-o-e-s-dot-com-dot-a-u. Until next time, bye

[Happy exit music]

Meet besties Marie and Pete

Marie and Pete

Marie Skelton is an Australian writer, speaker, and change and resiliency expert. She started her career in journalism before working in public affairs and then specialising in organisational and culture change for some of the world’s largest tech and financial services companies, both in Australia and the U.S. She also played volleyball for Australia and on scholarship at a D1 university in the U.S. and she captained the NSW Women’s Volleyball team in the Australian Volleyball League.

Following a motorbike accident that nearly took her life, and leg, she began researching change and resiliency to find out how people cope with major life changes and why some people are really good at dealing with whatever life throws at them, while others struggle. She is passionate about mental health and writes about how to cope with today’s Change Storm and maintain mental wellness.  

Marie and Pete

Peter Furness is just plain awesome. He loves unicorns and champagne. Pete is the owner of Max Remedial, and a qualified remedial therapist and has worked all over the world with professional athletes, dancers, sporting organisations and medical professionals. Peter’s practice is influenced by his interest in Eastern philosophy and he works closely with Chinese and Ayurvedic practitioners, approaching the body from the principles of ancient medicine.

Peter has practiced Asstanga Yoga for 20 years and combines these principles with his approach to health.

Peter was also an award-winning contemporary dancer in Australia and in the UK. 

The Power of Meditation (E9)

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Happiness for Cynics podcast

This week, we look at the ancient practice of meditation and its ties to happiness. Pete shares his knowledge and some research, while Marie cracks jokes and pretty much contributes nothing to the conversation.

Transcription

M: You’re listening to the podcast happiness for cynics. I’m Marie Skelton. I’m a writer and speaker focused on change and resilience. My co-host is Peter.

P: Hey there, I’m Peter Furness. I’m a believer in crystals, purveyor of energetic connections and saviour of chubby unicorns.

M: Nice [laugh]

P: Each week we bring you the latest news and research in the world of positive psychology otherwise known as happiness. Marie has a blog.

M: I do, you can find me at marieskelton.com and there’s a whole lot of resources there for you on how to be happy.

P: Awe… Such a nice concept.

M: Yeah, [laugh] it is. It is, anyway. So today, today’s all about you, Peter, because today’s episode is about meditation.

P: Where’s my gong and my singing bowl?

M: So this –

P: – I really should have brought my gong and my singing bowl.

M: [Laugh]

P: That would have been a great intro!

M: I’m sure we can work that out, you know post production.

[Laughter]

P: Can we add that in later that would be so cool. I have three.

M: Done

[Gong – singing bowl – happy music]

M: Okay. And we’re back. And they were talking about meditation, so we’re going to have a little bit of a different format today. Meditation is so far out of my comfort zone.

P: [Laugh]

M: My understanding on meditation is that it’s on a spectrum. On one end, you’ve got mindfulness, which is putting your phone down at the dinner table, and then you move in to beginners learning how to sit on the cold, hard floor with their legs crossed. To, what normal people can do when they practise after years and years of meditating? And then you’ve got that weird, shave my head and take a vow of silence and sit on a mountaintop and meditate for days and days on end. That’s the other end of the spectrum.

P: It’s like the elite sports level of meditation.

M: Yeah. So that’s my very naive understanding off the mindfulness to meditation spectrum.

P: Right.

[Laughter]

M: Which is why today and in today’s episode we’re going to do more of a Q and A with Pete, because this is definitely more your domain of expertise.

P: Have you ever meditated Marie? Have you ever sat down and actually consciously meditated?

M: No one would want to sit quietly with my mind Peter.

P: [Laugh]

M: The answer is no.

P: So this is the interesting thing about people’s perceptions of meditation on what it is versus actually what it can be. I find quite interesting, it is a bit of a Pandora’s Box once you open up the concept of meditation you go ‘Oh my god! I’m going [through] the looking glass.’ It’s a really broad subject, everybody has their own interpretation of it and even the scholars all differ on their interpretations and understanding and meanings of meditation.

M: So we’ll park. As I said, I’ve got a very broad and basic understanding. We’re going to park mindfulness for another episode and focus purely on meditation today.

P: That’s good because the two are not necessarily the same.

M: Again for another time, I’m keen to just start us off so that we’re all on the same page on your understanding, your definition for meditation.

P: Right, so there are a couple of definitions that I do like. The most simplistic one that I like is meditation is a method for acquainting our mind with virtue.

M: That’s why it’s not for me… virtue?

P: [Laugh] So again virtue has many different connotations in and of itself, but when we talk about virtue in the context, we’re talking about that moral compass. We’re talking about the good things, the responsible things, the acolytes that we aim to aspire to. So we’re trying to get in touch with that in terms of where acquainting our minds with when we try to meditate. That’s the end goal I guess in a way, it’s the reason behind it.

There are other people that talk about different kinds of meditation and what it is. It’s a tool for happiness. Now, we, the concept of meditation, making you happy. Yes, it does. There is a little bit of science around this. Happiness is hard wired. It’s genetic in our brains, people who are happy have more frontal lobe activity. So meditation is a way of quieting the mind so that you can actually access some more of that frontal lobe activity. Because meditation stimulates the same cortex’s in the brain. And scientists have talked about this briefly.

Psychology today actually talks about it as a stronger mental practise that has the power to reset your happiness set point. And that happiness set point is that frontal lobe activity of the brain so meditation can access that it can start to train your brain to access that area a little bit more, thus leading to more happiness or the ability to experience more happiness.

M: OK fine…

P: [Laugh] Did I just get you with a scientific quote there?

M: Yes, yes!

P: Ha ha! See it’s not all gong’s and whistles. [Laugh]

M: Maybe, maybe. We’ll see. Anyway, let’s, let’s, let’s maybe start with how you got into this. So how did you begin practising meditation and why did you get into it?

P: I guess I got involved with Eastern Philosophy when I started University. I was very dissatisfied with the Christian experience and so I was still understanding of the need for some spiritually exploration for myself and managed to access a little bit of Tao-ism and a little bit of Buddhism through some very basic books that I found when I was in that second year at university. It’s also the time when I started spending some time alone, which we talked about in another episode and having quiet time at the end of the day and for me it came about from my practise of needing to be a little bit more… actually it came through yoga in a way. I was discovering the need for stretching and downtime and the physicality of yoga but then through that I also got access to the philosophy of yoga which is Indian, a classic Indian … principal. So those practises of being still with the mind and quieting became part of my daily routine. So I go home at the end of the day, I put a little candle in the window in my … flat and watch the sunset and do an hour of yoga.

M: I was in the pubs.

P: [Laugh]

M: My University days were very different from yours.

P: [Still laughing]

M: There was beer o’clock on Wednesdays and then Thursday night was Uni night and then there’s the usual Friday, Saturday, so very different.

P: I was ohm-ing and chanting and playing meditative gong music… [Laugh]

M: Whatever works for you.

P: [Laugh]

M: So you came from a country upbringing, Christian, came to university in the big city looking for something a bit different.

P: uh huh.

M: If I’m going to paraphrase your story here, and discovered yoga and then from there meditation. So what benefits has it given you?

P: Well that’s a big question. I think the big thing about meditation is quieting the mind so when you meditate it’s not about stilling the mind, you know people say ‘think of nothing, empty your mind.’ Emptying your mind is bad. It is not good. And I really like Gelong Thubten’s interpretation of meditation, in terms of thinking of your brain like a highway. So you’ve got lots of traffic, got lots of cars going to and forth. If you stop the flow of thought. If you stop your mind being active, traffic’s gonna jam. There’s going to be a backup of traffic. There’s going to be problems. There’s not going to be a transfer of thought processes going through and you’re going to miss a whole heap of stuff because the traffic’s backed up.

It’s more about bringing your attention to each individual car on that highway and allowing it to pass through. So you’re not necessarily stilling your mind. You’re allowing each thought to come up. You’re recognising it and then letting it go. In terms of being aware of that you’re trying to be bringing in mindfulness, so bringing in that mindful state of going ‘I see that car, I see that thought and I will let it go. And then you’re trying to make me focus on the awareness of thoughts that you need, the awareness of thoughts that you want to retain and the awareness of thoughts that you want to let through and just let them keep going.

M: So in a way are you practising reinforcing positive thoughts and dismissing negative thoughts is that part of meditation?

P: I believe it is. It definitely was from my experience, because it’s initially it was all about the negative thoughts and focusing on those negative thoughts and going ‘Oh, I’ve really got to address that!’ and that’s a lot of anxiety and stress around that, whereas the more reading I did about meditation, the more I understood about allowing that balance and flow to come through. But allowing my mind for a little while to focus on the nice thinks the positive things, the things that brought me quiet smiles, gentle thoughts the things that would make me unwind from my anxiety. [Whispering] Which were pretty great when I was only 21 years old.

[Laughter]

P: Just saying [laugh]

M: In all fairness millennials are struggling there’s an epidemic of anxiety. Our younger generations, we’re putting so many pressures on them nowadays that, you know, you and I didn’t have and out parents definitely didn’t have growing up and they’re anxious. So maybe meditation is something we should be talking about more.

P: Again we’re coming back to the Scandinavian example of instilling meditation into schools. Even at the ripe, young age of infancy school, there are certain schools and business, uh, organisations out there that are instilling meditation. There’s a wonderful example of one in China I think [actually Baltimore] it was where instead of having detention they introduce meditation.

M: Oh, I think I’ve seen that one.

P: Yes, it’s about changing the story, changing the process. You’re being punished because you did something wrong. Whereas they’re going, no let’s investigate the reasons behind why you’re acting in this way. It’s a game changer, it changes our awareness. And I think in this case, the millennials, I think this is something we really need to explore. We’re more conscious, we’re sifting through information now than we’ve ever done. It’s important to maybe be more aware of how we interpret that information, why we’re interpreting certain bits of it than others.

M: And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with having a closer look at your own feelings. I know that there’s a lot of work right now in the men’s mental health space, particularly older generations who have traditionally been told, buck up and suck it up and don’t express emotions. And they keep sucking it up until they explode. And they either explode in anger or violence or both. And it’s not healthy, we know that now.

P: And I think anger and violence is very often turned on themselves. The suicide rate for rural men has been alarmingly high. I think, in America and in Australia, that example of clocking that and … the governments are investing money into mental health of people who are in isolated areas making sure that they have support, that they’ve got access to phone lines, medical support and the mate-ship factor. It was the pubs, in the country pubs it’s where you, upended you’re feelings, it was a safe place for blokes to go ‘Geez mate the crops are bad, the wife’s giving me hell.’ You talk things out.

M: I love you being a country man.

[Laughter]

M: A country bloke!

P: [Laugh] I spent my childhood years with my father driving around the western/ sub-western areas of NSW and Dad always pulled into the pub. That’s his way of dealing with the monotony of things and maybe getting some thought processes out, he didn’t have a counsellor or anything he could talk to. It was over a beer at the pub.

M:  And that sounds like meditation might be another tool that people could use to become more aware of their internal monologue and their feelings and their emotions and maybe short circuit the traditional way they’ve dealt with that.

P: Yep.

M: Just to bottle it until they can’t.

P: Yep, absolutely.

M: [Chipper voice] So Pete,

P: [Laugh]

M: There are various types of meditation, right? Can you tell us about that?

P: [Laugh] Oh my god, you sound like an infomercial. Yes there are. So I’m gonna try and make it really simple.

M: Please do. This is all over my head.

P: Yeah, I’m going to make it really simple about the two different types. There’s Analytical and Placement meditation.

So Analytical meditation is where we’re contemplating the meaning of the text. So we’re looking at a spiritual text such as the Bible or something, the Koran [Quran], something that a Taoist monk has said so we’re looking at a sentence and going we’re going to focus on the meaning behind that sentence. That’s analytical meditation, taking a text and interpreting it, so meditation upon that and all the different areas on that.

M: So it’s like Bible study by yourself?

P: Yep, you could put it that way.

M: Yep, alright with you… next?

P: [Laugh] which then leads to Placement meditation. Now Placement meditation is possibly where most people think meditation is it’s the cause of a specific virtuous state of mind to arise. It’s a very complex sentence. We’re allowing a state of mind to come forth. So we’re not thinking of a text, we’re not thinking of don’t do wrong by your neighbour. We’re allowing that analytical faze to give way to a much more subtle faze where we’re allowing thoughts and certain things to drop in, so it might be ‘I really shouldn’t pinch the roses out of my neighbours garden.’

M: [Snort] Is that a habit of yours?

P: Well… no, no.

M: For me, I know I would sit down and it would be ‘Oh! that’s what I should have said yesterday when I was fighting with my colleague.’ Darn it! Right?

P: [Laugh]

M: Or when my boss told me to do that, have a perfect come back now.

P: Yeah.

M: Those are the things I ruminate on in the shower, generally.

[Laughter]

M: Next time, next time!

P: I think if we take that case and point that could be your analytical meditation. So ‘I should have said this. I should have done this.’ If you can sit with that for a little while, quietly allowing your thoughts and those vehicles to pass through. You actually might find yourself thinking about the reasons behind why that conversation happened in the first place. ‘Could I have actioned something earlier than that to avoid this situation?’ And that’s more that placement meditation I’m talking about where you’re allowing the thoughts to come and go, and you’re picking out the ones that are relevant, all the ones that are going to lead to a better action, a more heightened state, more frontal lobe activity, more happiness.

M: So we’re coming to the end of the podcast. For our listeners. How would you advise getting started on practising some basics of meditation?

P: Meditate badly…

M: Ok, I like it.

P: He, he. It’s really hard to do meditation. It’s like running a marathon you don’t just get up one morning and decide you’re going to run 42kms, you can’t, it’s not possible, you are going to hurt yourself. So Meditation’s exactly the same, it’s about starting small and making the smallest little step towards that 42kms mark.

So that means one minute.

M: So, go sit on the floor, cross your legs for a minute and close your eyes.

P: Turn off the tv, silence the radio, sit down for one minute with your thoughts and don’t let anything interrupt you. That means locking the cat in the bathroom.

[Laughter]

P: Not allowing your kids to run in. It’s got to be one minute and you’ll find that it’s actually quite difficult to then go to 2, then 3, 4 and 5 that becomes that’s a forward goal.

M: Do you set an egg timer?

P: Absolutely.

M: I would spend that minute counting seconds [Laugh].

P: I guess that’s the thing. It takes you, it takes you more than a minute to quiet the mind, and quiet in the mind is a pathway to the meditative state that we are seeking. So before we even get to that state, before we even get to running, we’ve got to walk out the door and put our training shoes on. It’s exactly the same with meditation we’ve got to feel comfortable in our sitting on the floor, cross legged. It could be sitting on the couch. It could be sitting in your favourite chair, but it’s about bringing that mindful state and then accessing that state where you slow the traffic and that can take a good four weeks of attempts to try and get there. And once you can achieve that, then you can start going ‘right that was two minutes of quality meditative time there, let’s see if I can expanded that to five over the next two weeks.

M: OK. I’m going to ask a few beginners questions. There’s no such thing as a dumb question. Just remember that?

P: No [meaning yes]

M: Okay, what’s with the crossing the legs. Do you have to do that?

P: No

M: Do you have to close your eyes?

P: No

M: Do you have to sit on the floor?

P: No

M: Do you have to sit?

P: Being still, is helpful to bring awareness to your brain and to your mind so you can’t necessarily meditate when you’re on the treadmill. Although my initial experience of meditation was through the yoga, through doing physical activity and being in downward dog and noticing my breath now that was a pathway to able to access the stillness and then I used that when it came to actually sitting down. When you’re doing yoga practise, you finish with shavasana which is dead man’s corpse pose where you’re lying on the ground, on your back with your palms up, close your eyes and you’re just concentrating on your breath. You’ve done 45 minutes, you’ve done five minutes, you’ve done an hour and a half of a yoga class, that last pose is where the magic is because you quiet everything and you bring your awareness to that really calm, still point and that’s the meditative state where you can really focus on thoughts without being physical.

M: So last question for you before we sign off. For people who are just overwhelmed with life, we’ve got so much going on, we’ve all got busy lives at work and at home.

What is one tip for quieting the mind?

P: Don’t be judgmental. Do not be judgmental on yourself on your thought processes. There is another quote here that I’ll read out.

‘Meditation is about turning inwards and being able to observe all of your thoughts and bodily sensations without judgement.’

M: I think that’s a perfect place to end.

P: It is.

M: All right. Thanks for joining us today. If you want to hear more please remember to subscribe and like this podcast.

P: And go out and buy a singing bowl and have a little gong for me.

M: [Laugh] until next time. Bye

P: Bye

[Gong and singing bowl]

[Happy exit music]

Meet besties Marie and Pete

Marie and Pete

Marie Skelton is an Australian writer, speaker, and change and resiliency expert. She started her career in journalism before working in public affairs and then specialising in organisational and culture change for some of the world’s largest tech and financial services companies, both in Australia and the U.S. She also played volleyball for Australia and on scholarship at a D1 university in the U.S. and she captained the NSW Women’s Volleyball team in the Australian Volleyball League.

Following a motorbike accident that nearly took her life, and leg, she began researching change and resiliency to find out how people cope with major life changes and why some people are really good at dealing with whatever life throws at them, while others struggle. She is passionate about mental health and writes about how to cope with today’s Change Storm and maintain mental wellness.  

Marie and Pete

Peter Furness is just plain awesome. He loves unicorns and champagne. Pete is the owner of Max Remedial, and a qualified remedial therapist and has worked all over the world with professional athletes, dancers, sporting organisations and medical professionals. Peter’s practice is influenced by his interest in Eastern philosophy and he works closely with Chinese and Ayurvedic practitioners, approaching the body from the principles of ancient medicine.

Peter has practiced Asstanga Yoga for 20 years and combines these principles with his approach to health.

Peter was also an award-winning contemporary dancer in Australia and in the UK. 

Happiness is Contagious (E8)

by

Happiness for Cynics podcast

Did you know that happiness and laughter are both contagious? We present the research to back up that ludicrous statement and some tips on how to get you some happiness and laughter in your life. Plus we present a secret crazy study about happy sweat.

In this episode, Marie mentions that smiling at people has different meanings in different cultures, here are a few articles about that:

Transcription

M: You’re listening to the podcast happiness for cynics. I’m Marie Skelton, a writer, speaker and expert in change, and my co-host is Peter Furness.

P: Hi there I’m Peter Furness and I’m a health practitioner, unicorn lover and wanna-be handstand achiever. Each week we will bring you the latest news and research in the field of positive psychology, otherwise known as happiness. Marie, you’ve got a blog.

M: Yes, I do. It’s at marieskelton.com, which is a site about major life changes and how to cope with them. And the site uses a lot of the research that we talk about here on the podcast and has some really practical tips for bringing happiness and joy into your life. And when I say practical, I’m talking about science backed tips.

P: Always science with Marie Skelton.

M: [Laugh]

P: Never the fluff.

M: Yep, never the fluff. You can also find me on Twitter. My handle is @marieskelton.

And on to today’s episode, which is about the contagion off laughter…

P: [Laughter]

M: Wait, what are we talking about today?

P: The contagion of happiness. There’s a great example there. [Laugh]

M: Well there’s a bit more to it. It’s about contagion in general.

P: In general, yes, yes, as much as you can sneeze it on someone and give them influenza, you can sneeze on someone or laugh on them and give them happiness.

[Laughter]

M: We’ll get into that…

Welcome to today’s show.

P: [Laugh]

M: What are we calling this one?

[Happy music]

M: So welcome to today’s show. I’m here with Peter and, as we mentioned before the little interlude, we’re here to talk about contagious-ness and contagion just missed.

P: Contagious-ness, that’s a good one [laugh].

M: Yep, yep, yep. You’ve really thrown me through a loop and I’m not sure what to call this episode.

[Laughter]

M: But we are going to talk about how happiness is contagious and then there’s some other great studies that I’m fascinated with that we want to share with our listeners today, so maybe we can start with the evolution of smiling and laughter. So the smile can be traced back over 30 million years of evolution to a fear grin, which stem from monkeys and apes who often used barely clenched teeth, to portray to predators that they were harmless. So humans over time have turned this into a form of greeting, and there’s a lot of contention as to the exact origins of smiling and laughter. And there isn’t really one true theory that everyone agrees on. But there is a little bit of research indicates that the smile has evolved over time into a way of attracting mates in early humans.

P: So basically showing a demeanour of joy or happiness makes other people trust you more it makes people be more receptive to you and know that you aren’t threatening. So, get the sunglasses off people.

[Laughter]

M: More than that, you know if everyone’s got their face in their phone we’re not smiling at each other.

P: Absolutely.

M: So one of the things that my mom used to lament when we moved to a big city, Canberra, which is not a city but she came from Newcastle, which was slightly smaller at the time was that people didn’t smile and say hello when they passed each other on the sidewalk.

P: Yes, it’s the country NSW’s thing as well and then think well, it’s the recognition of someone as your walking past the tip of the hat, a finger in the air, just that twinkle in the eye. It’s the recognition of, yep I see you.

M: But when you move to a bigger city, the people who have that twinkle in their eye and say hi, are normally creepy and will follow you.

P: [Laugh]

M: So, there’s maybe a little bit of a defence mechanism going on there.

P: True, true.

M: It’s like when you’re the only person on the bus and that person comes and sits right next to you.

P: Oh, yes…

[Laughter]

M: Anyway so maybe that’s what happens when you get to bigger cities. Also, you don’t know far more people. But the other thing that I found out was that smiling when you pass people is also cultural, and I’d have to look this up, I’ve just come to this in my mind and haven’t done any research into this before right now.

I remember reading an article with people asking ‘What is it with everyone smiling at me?’

P: [Laugh]

M: ‘You’re all creepy.’

So, I think there’s a cultural element to that.

P: I’m going to put myself out here, I do smile at people on the street a lot actually and I find it interesting to play with because some people really don’t like it. [Laugh] and I’m terrible if someone’s got a dog I’m instantly like, I’m smiling at the dog because I like dogs but then I always make a point of making sure I look at the owner because too often the owners of dogs are ignored. You know you should at least say isn’t he or she beautiful.

M: Yeah, don’t start patting the owner, though.

P: Oh, that could be fun.

[Laughter]

M: I think that’s harassment.

P: I think that’s the definition of the creepy person on the bus.

[Laughter]

M: So you had a study that you want to talk about just about happiness in general. Right?

P: Yes. The study was published in the British Medical Journal and this is all around happiness contagion.

This study took 4700 people stayed on them for over 20 years from 1983 to 2003 and it promotes that happiness, like a cold in winter, spreads. So it is passed on to people that are around you. It assed people’s emotional well-being and they took questionnaires of participants feelings of well-being and general demeanour. They also gave these studies to the participants spouse’s, friends, relatives, people they knew in their daily life, creating a network of more than 50,000 subjects, which is a pretty decent sized research project to be honest.

M: Absolutely.

P: It kind of came out some interesting findings. The really interesting one is that, yes happiness does spread and they even get percentages. So when one person is happy, they raised the odds of their spouse being happy by 8% their sibling by 14% and their neighbour by 34%.

And I found this really interesting because it talks about the close proximity of people in their daily interactions. So one big happy person, if you meet that person once the effect of that happiness being passed on to you might be short term, whereas when you’re involved in a daily contact with people, when you’re involved in intimate contact over the fence, as you are with neighbours, and I’m thinking, particularly of my mother in this instance, happiness flow on effect is more than a third. That’s pretty high.

M: I’m still thinking about you having intimate moments with your neighbour. How many people that you meet do you have-

  • [Laughter]

P: Well, I’m the hands on person so… no I’m very respectful honestly.

M: And I think, I think deep down humans know this. We gravitate to the positive, energetic people in our classes at school and to the exuberant and dynamic personalities. And I think that’s a natural subconscious thing in general.

So something in that research that I thought was really interesting as well, though, was that work spaces were a happiness free zone.

[Laughter]

So to explain what I mean by that, so that the researches don’t call me up and go ‘what have you said?’ So, happiness didn’t appear to spread amongst co-workers. So the researchers attributed that to the sometimes competitive nature of our work relationships. But if you think about it, a happy person will increase their spouse’s odds of being happy by 8%, their siblings odds of being happy by 14%, their neighbours odds of being happy by 34% and their co-workers odds of being happy zero.

P: Zero [laugh]

M: Nothing, nada. So having happy or not happy people around your work? Maybe not, not happy, but having happy people around you makes no impact at all.

P: Possibly more focused on other things… Or all that other stuff that we have to focus on when we’re working.

M: Yeah, a bit depressing really.

And then the other thing, just to point out on that study was that the proximity thing that you’re talking about. So this is why I think you can have a big impact on your neighbours but family siblings they’ve got to be close by. So anyone that’s more than a mile away, really didn’t get much of the impact.

P: Yes, however, just to go further into that as well, the research also says that there are three degrees of separation for this network effect, so it might not even be the person that’s directly associated with you that you are affecting. But, the researchers found, is that the people who know that person and the people that know that person’s person are also directly affected by someone’s happiness. And I think that’s an interesting point as well is that your happiness can spread.

Just in support of that research as well a Harvard research professor [Medical Sociology and Medicine], Nicholas Christakis researched the contagion of emotions in terms of the larger context of social networks.

M: I told you we were talking about contagion.

P: [Laugh] He found that, in support of what Marie said in that having a happy friend within a mile of you increased the probability that you will be happy and that that close social network is the most prevalent factor in terms of buying into someone else’s happiness and having that affect you.

M: The best example of the laughter contagion is, and if you haven’t seen it, I encourage you get onto Google or YouTube and look up the Skype laughter chain, and it currently has 32 million views on YouTube and the premise behind this laughter chain was, we watch someone laughing and someone else watches that person laughing and you filmed them, and that person starts laughing at the first person. And then you film a third person watching the second person laughing at the first person and then a fourth and fifth and a sixth. And so you end up with series of people laughing, one after the other, and I dare you not to laugh at this, at this chain of people laughing. It is contagious.

P: Yep

M: Now they have magically found people with unique laughs and it is truly, it’s hilarious. So we’re going to play you a short, clip. So without infringing on anyone’s copyright, here it is the Skype laughter chain. And here is a short listen.

[Sound clip of Skype laughter chain]

P: It’s quite funny when we were watching that we were walking down the street at Brighton Le-Sands. As I was effusively laughing, as I tend to do, people that were walking past us started to crack a smile.

[Laughter]

P: So it just shows that, that expression of happiness is actually a key as well in that you can affect someone’s small little day, and I find that myself if I’m walking past people that are having a great old time and being stupid. I’ll walk past a have a little smile.

M: I think I’m getting old. Sometimes I judge now.

P: Oh well, you’re the cynic here. [Laugh] See I’m the fluffy one and you’re the cynic.

M: I think it depends [on] what they’re doing. And also I find if kids are laughing. That’s just far more innocent and cute.

P: Oh, see I’m probably on the other foot on that one. I’m like ‘go away’. Small children aagghh. [Laugh]

Now coming back to the chimpanzee research it’s the mimicry it’s the decree that researchers found that harkens back to our ape like ancestors is that we mimic people’s laughter and they did a study on this, with the American Psychological Association publishing a study by the University of Portsmouth, where they watched a group of 57 chimpanzees. And these chimpanzees were mimicking the laughs that were coming out and the laughs that were coming out second were slightly different, but it had that flow on effect.

M: So we’ve seen that feelings of happiness can be transferred through vision and hearing. But did you know that happiness is also contagious via our sense of smell?

P: You’re going to love this one. This is Marie’s favourite bit. [Laugh]

M: I had to find a way to get this into one of the episodes. [Laugh] So I’m referring to a study which suggests that happy people give off an odour that makes other people smile.

P: In essence sweaty people are happy people?

M: No, sweat makes you happy.

P: OOhh!

M: But only some types of sweat.

[Laughter]

M: So it gets better, let me explain how researchers did this study. So they collected samples from male participants as they watched videos like bare necessities and funny clips and pranks. Guys watch these funny and or fun light-hearted clips. They also had another group that watched movies that were made to make them feel afraid or no emotional response at all. And they collected sweat off all of these people. The sweat samples were then presented to female participants-

P: [Laugh]

M: Which I find kind of a bit strange. And then the female participants were recorded while they were smelling the sweat samples for their facial expressions and when sniffing sweat from someone who felt happy that we’re more likely to smile.

P: Is it wrong that I just had an image of a room full of men with their armpits in the air and these women walking along having a good long draw. That’s kind of how I think they should have done the experiment.

[Laughter]

M: I don’t know but this experiment just, it’s hilarious to me, absolutely hilarious. They get a whole bunch of men, they take their sweat then they get a bunch of woman in and they film their reactions to them smelling the sweat.

P: [Laugh]

M: But what it does do is that supports the idea that surrounding ourselves with happier people, and their scents –

P: and their scent.

M: – can bring more positive emotion into our lives.

P: It’s all about sniffing each other when it comes down to it. Look at dogs they’ve got it right. They say hello by sniffing someone’s butt.

M: I knew you would take it there.

P: [Laugh]

M: I told you, you couldn’t pat people on the street, now you want to go sniff them.

[Laughter]

P: Alright, I’ll behave. Anyway, so putting this into practise. How do we make ourselves open to the contagion of happiness? Essentially, find happy people. Find the people in your life or around you that are happy that are that effusive celebratory kind of personality, be around them, put yourself in their vicinity even when you’re feeling low or quiet. Sometimes the best thing is to, is to shake yourself off and go ‘No, I’m going to go to that party because I know that such and such is going to be there and I know I’ll key into what they’re actually offering and their vibe and they’re always a fabulous person so I’m going to go along and be a part of that. The other that I love is laugh out loud people. Sometimes people are, they don’t want to laugh, they don’t want to express their happiness. I’m all for being in a movie theatre and having a good old giggle. Performance friends of mine used to love me in the audience because I actually react, sometimes in the middle of this very serious drama theatrical performance they would hear this big guffaw from the audience because I thought it was funny.

M: [Laugh] Great, right in the middle of the serious part.

P: Case and point. Uncle Vanya, Sydney Theatre Company production about five years ago, Richard Roxburgh and Hugo Weaving on stage, it’s meant to be this dark serious Russian play. Ugh, ugh. Not with those two. It was hilarious.

[Laughter]

P: So don’t, don’t stifle your laughter allow yourself to express it because it’s not just you, it’s someone else is going to feel the permission to laugh. And I think that’s a really important one allow yourselves the permission the laugh. The other thing is hosting, host a party, host a barbeque, host a film night. Host a laughter circle where you all lie on the floor with your heads on each other’s stomachs. Do you remember doing that at camps in high school?

M: We did, I actually hosted a laughter workshop at my old work and people loved it we just don’t laugh enough at work.

P: The science proves it, we don’t because of our competitive nature.

[Laughter]

M: The other thing I’ll add to this as far as things you can do, something that I found I had to grow up in order to do it. It was cut negative people out of my life and I don’t want people to jump to cutting people out of their lives just because they having about time. I do believe in loyalty to friends and sticking with them through hard times. There are some people, however, who take far more than they give and will not change. And at some point in my late twenties, I realised who those people were on and felt OK with not calling them to go have coffee or lunch or whatever it was and not making the effort to maintain a relationship. Some of them are were a little bit more abrupt, and others just trailed off. And I let them deliberately trail off, those relationships. And I think that’s really important. On the flip side, you surround yourself with happy people. But you also need to at times protect yourself.

P: I think protection is very vital. If a person is that negative there is a certain amount of loyalty and concern, no one wants to be shutting anyone off. But, ah, you have to look after number one. You have to look after the self-first. And if, if you’re feeling it, then sometimes it’s best to limit that exposure.

M: Yep. OK. Is that it for this week?

P: I think so.

M: I think it is. All right, well there you go. Go sneeze happiness all over people.

P: Go sniff people!

[Laughter]

M: They are the two take outs for this episode.

Thank you for joining us. If you want to hear more, please remember to subscribe. And like this podcast.

P: We will see you next week.

Meet besties Marie and Pete

Marie and Pete

Marie Skelton is an Australian writer, speaker, and change and resiliency expert. She started her career in journalism before working in public affairs and then specialising in organisational and culture change for some of the world’s largest tech and financial services companies, both in Australia and the U.S. She also played volleyball for Australia and on scholarship at a D1 university in the U.S. and she captained the NSW Women’s Volleyball team in the Australian Volleyball League.

Following a motorbike accident that nearly took her life, and leg, she began researching change and resiliency to find out how people cope with major life changes and why some people are really good at dealing with whatever life throws at them, while others struggle. She is passionate about mental health and writes about how to cope with today’s Change Storm and maintain mental wellness.  

Marie and Pete

Peter Furness is just plain awesome. He loves unicorns and champagne. Pete is the owner of Max Remedial, and a qualified remedial therapist and has worked all over the world with professional athletes, dancers, sporting organisations and medical professionals. Peter’s practice is influenced by his interest in Eastern philosophy and he works closely with Chinese and Ayurvedic practitioners, approaching the body from the principles of ancient medicine.

Peter has practiced Asstanga Yoga for 20 years and combines these principles with his approach to health.

Peter was also an award-winning contemporary dancer in Australia and in the UK. 

Being Alone Can Make you Happier (E7)

by

Happiness for Cynics podcast – episode 7

Research shows that being alone is good for you. Who knew that introverts’ constant search for ‘me time’ could be making them happier and more creative. Here’s your 3-steps guide to being alone.

Transcription

M: You’re listening to the podcast happiness for cynics. I’m Marie Skelton, a writer and change and transformation expert, and my co-host is Peter Furness, Peter?

P: Hi there, I’m Peter Furness a wanna be lunch time guru, fantasy dragon lover and all around thrill seeker with insular tendencies. Each week we will bring to you the latest news and research in the world of positive psychology otherwise known as happiness.

M: Yes, you can find us both at marieskelton.com. And the site uses a lot of the same research we talk about here on the podcast. So if you want to follow up with anything we’ve spoken about head on over there, you can also follow my musings and shared research on Twitter at Murray Stilton. So on today’s episode, which is all about being alone.

[Happy music]

M: So today we’re talking about the importance of being alone.

P: Solo time, don’t we all crave it at one point in the day.

M: Well I think you and I do because we’re introverts.

P: This is what we’re going to talk about introvert, extravert and somewhere on that sliding scale in between.

M: Yep, yep. So I think we crave it but I don’t know I’m not an extravert. So do they crave alone time? Anyway, that’s for later.

P: [Laugh] Let’s not get a head of ourselves, Marie. OK, before we go there, let’s dive into what it actually means, what the doing is. It’s well documented that social connection is important to happiness, Humans are community people, we need people around us. We’ve evolved from family groups, hunter/gatherer groups and that’s gone through to modern times that we’ve talked about the importance of having your close relationships, having people around you that make you a better person all that it takes to raise a child stuff. But being lonely and having alone time is just as important.

M: Well, no, there’s a difference between being alone [and lonely], I think is what you want to say. So what we’re talking about here –

P: – Is that what I meant to say? …That’s what I meant to say.

M: Yes, that’s what we discussed earlier.

P: So, I did get that wrong.

M: Ssshh, don’t tell anyone.

[Laughter]

M: So, to, expand on that statement. What we’re talking about here is the fact that human beings are social by nature, by design and by evolution. But that today we want to talk about the opposite of that which is deliberately choosing to be alone. And what we’re not talking about or addressing in today’s episode is being lonely. Which is not a choice.

P: Yeah, being lonely is different from having alone time.

M: Yep, definitely. So back to, what you’re saying about human evolution and me being an introvert. What I see is a world that’s designed by extroverts for extroverts. It’s designed for people to be social from classrooms with 20 or 30 Children in them to group work at university and open office environments. It feels like an extrovert’s playground out there. Everything is designed, whether or not we’re succeeding at that is another matter, is designed for being social.

P: OK

M: And that stands to reason, because there’s positive benefits to that. So in sports and at work the happy and outgoing and positive and popular people, the ones that get promoted or put into leadership positions, while the quiet achievers can often get overlooked. And there’s a whole lot of research out there that supports that particularly in western societies, where individualistic tendencies are much higher.

P: It’s funny because when I read that quote I instantly went ‘Oh is that true? Do the introverts always get looked over?’ and we briefly brought this up earlier in the episode where I said I’m not sure that stands to reason in certain echelons or groups or circles. I mean, when you get to the upper tier of their some sporting organisations and things like that it comes down to more than introvert/extravert. But we also talked about cultural influences and whether certain cultures that are extravert, now you and I are both know what it was like to play volleyball with Asians and Brazilians.

[Laughter]

M: That was a culture clash.

P: And in the middle were the little Australians going I don’t understand!

M: Yep

P: I think that’s interesting at the line at which, it can be very general in that the world is built for extraverts. There is some areas in there were introverts can succeed and if you are naturally an introvert, it’s not a barrier. That’s what I’m going to throw at you. It’s there’s a way through it.

M: Name them?

P: Aaagghh, [laugh] don’t ask me for science Marie.

M: I’m calling you out

[Laughter]

M: I think there are certain career paths in particular where you can succeed as an introvert but you won’t make it into the leadership echelons.

P: And this is where you probably have more of a background than I do.

M: Yeah, look we could spend a whole episode talking about that, but let’s, let’s firstly clear up what we mean by introvert and extravert.

P: Yes, definitely.

M: So what I’m talking about and there are millions of different definitions out there and ways of looking at it. But when I think of an introvert, I talk about introverts, being energised from being alone and extroverts, being energised from being with people. Now I’m an introvert, and it’s not to say that I’m not social or I don’t have a lot of friends. It just means that I do everything in my power to find me time –

[Laughter]

M: – And I love people, and I really, honestly, genuinely care about people. But too much people drives me crazy, and I just need to come home and hide, and I get wound up. So after a day of work, I just need to come home and have some quiet time and some me time. Unwind.

P: I think everybody needs it when they walk in the door. I think it’s that, having that space. When I first moved in with a flat mate in Townsville, poor Alice she was so lovely, so I would come home and I made it very clear when we moved in together that when I come home from work, I need half an hour of quiet time. And she was like ‘Oh, OK.’ It was me on the floor with my Buddha’s and candles, and the soft music, doing my yoga and Alice was amazing, she would just shut up and she’d just sit there and watch and be very quiet and respectful of my me time. Who does that in a shared household? [Laugh]

M: Yeah, so when I first got married.

P: OOOHHH

M: [Laugh] We’re sharing.

P: [Raucous Laughter]

M: I had to have that conversation, my husband, because I’d get home and he would be all over me, which is lovely and sweet.

P: Aawww, how sweet.

But how do you tell someone, F off, I need my time, you know.

[Laughter]

M: The problem is between the pinging of my phone, the expectations of friends and family, the realities of work and life. It feels like a constant tug a constant struggle, and it can often feel like the world just isn’t built for introverts, and I feel the pressure to be present and available.

P: Your story’s not uncommon Marie. It’s estimated that anywhere from 20 to 50% of the population are introverts or have introverted tendencies, characteristics as we talked about that sliding scale, you’ve got to try and find that balance between being social and being out there and also finding the opportunities to get away, to recharge to spend time with the self. And that’s probably really what we’re going to be talking about in this episode of being important is finding the ways and the ways to achieve being alone.

M: So, what we’re saying is that it’s not that introverts don’t want or need to be around people; It’s just that we need more balance between the time with and without other people.

P: and that’s a very individual thing.

M: So what we’re saying really is that extroverts and introverts are all social beings, it’s just the degree of contact that varies, right?

P: Yeah

M: And the science backs that up. It says, be social. The key to happiness is being social and having tight connections and good community bonds. It helps to fight loneliness, which is becoming more and more of an issue with the elderly-

P: – and not just the elderly the youth population as well.

M: Yep, true. Absolutely. So being social is super important. But here’s my question to you Pete.

Does it hold true then that all our time should be spent on social pursuits and that we should not be, we should never be unsocial?

P: Absolutely not. [Laugh] Investing in alone time is vital. We all need to do it. We may have been overlooking the benefits to being alone, sometimes when we think we have to be social we have to be out there and doing things. Research shows that introverts constant search for me time could actually make them happier and make them more creative. There’s a wonderful book by Julia Cameron called ‘The Artist’s Way’, where she talks about not being only alone in terms of a creative pursuit, but by locking yourself away you can actually step fully into yourself and step fully, immerse yourself, in your solo world and that could be incredibly rewarding. And it’s not just about sitting there and meditating. It’s about painting, about writing that flow that we talked about before accessing the flow space can be a real investment in the self. And if you can celebrate that. In her book she talks about a lot of the stuff that ways to access that, it’s a really good read for someone who may not even be creative, but how to tap into that creative space because it does celebrate and reward the alone time.

There’s another concept out there. The art of dating yourself. I really like this one. It’s honouring the self and investing as much time into a date with you as you would with a date with someone else. Taking yourself to the movies, taking yourself to a restaurant and having dinner on your own and really celebrating it, having a nice glass of wine with a candle on your own, it’s not a bad thing.

M: I really like the idea of taking yourself to the movies alone, because there’s always those guilty pleasures that you don’t want to own up to.

[Laughter]

M: I mean, I don’t know each to their own. You might be a secret Trekkie fan or Harry Potter fan, maybe like Twilight and you’re a 50 year old man. I’m not judging.

[Laughter]

M: This is a great way to get away and treat yourself.

P: [Laugh] I have it with Disney.

M: and not have to share it. [Laugh]

P: I’ve always been a Disney fan… I’m there lining up with kids and I’m on my own and all the parents are looking at me like I’m crazy. And I’m like no, no, no, I’m just a Disney aficionado, I like it. And I’ll happily sit there on my own and all the little kiddies are ranting and raving and I’m like “Ssshhh!! Be quiet, it’s Mickey.”

M: And I’m going to eat the whole bucket of popcorn be myself. [Laugh]

P: Oh Yeah [Laugh]

Moving along there’s a really wonderful quote by someone who I really admire, good old Nigella Lawson, god bless her. She’s a bit of an icon in terms of the celebrity chef world. She was in Australia recently with The School of Life. She was talking about cooking for yourself and one of her concepts. One of her quotes actually is: ‘I always think it’s a pity when people say they don’t cook anymore, because it’s just me.’ Nigella talks about thoroughly believing in the importance to cook for yourself, cooking for yourself for a long time. It could just be bread and cheese, but it could also be a three course meal. It’s a symbolic gesture to yourself that it’s important to say I will take care of me. It’s investing time, and I’ve done it when I’ve come home from work or a volleyball match or something at 11:30 and I’ve gone yeah I’m going to cook a roast and I’m going to have a glass of wine and I’m going to put it on the table. Like sitting down at the table on your own and people are like ‘wow, why are you doing it, you’re on your own?’

M: Because it’s about shifting your mind set from it being a chore. To, looking after yourself, being an act of self-care. So to get to the research because that’s my job [Laugh],

P: [Laugh] Back to the science Marie.

M: I’ve got a couple of studies here about the importance of being alone. So firstly, Russian researchers Martin Lynch, Sergey Ishanov and Dmitri Leontiev have investigated the phenomenon of positive solitude where people choose to spend time alone for contemplation, reflection or, as you mentioned, creativity. Then they found that being alone leads to more positive emotions like relaxation and calm. But they also get a greater sense of pleasure and meaning, meaning and satisfaction, purpose, happiness there all so interlinked. So this is definitely a great topic for us to be covering, given that we talk about happiness because the ties to meaning and happiness are so clear according to the research.

And then there’s another study, which was discussed in medical news today, which confirms that individuals who have balance between social interactions and periods of chosen isolation are highly creative.

P: Win for the Artists!

M: [Laugh] Again, going back to that introvert/ extravert scale and, you can definitely have too much of a good thing and too much of a bad thing, right. So there is a line where people become too shy and they avoid others, and that’s crossing the line. But simply choosing –

P: That’s not balance.

M: Yeah, and that’s when you’re at risk of being lonely when you’re shyness stops your ability to interact with others.

P: Locks you away yeah, it becomes a barrier.

M: But they did find that simply choosing to spend time alone wasn’t a bad thing. In fact the opposite. The lead researcher, University Buffalo’s Julie Bowker, said ‘Some individuals spend more time alone than others but also regularly spend time socialising.’ And that’s the group of individuals that may get just enough peer interaction so that when they’re alone they’re able to enjoy the solitude. ‘They’re able to think creatively and develop new ideas, like an artist in a studio or an academic in his or her office.’

So it’s, again that old chestnut balance.

[Laughter]

P: The Yin and the Yang.

M: Social beings out there who have a world that is their playground. What we’re saying to you is, try being alone with yourself. It’s healthy, and it also helps you to process and find that creativity.

P: It allows thoughts to drop in and out as well. Sometimes you need that quiet time where things will drop in to your thought consciousness. One of the interesting things is, I’m just thinking here, with that research here would be looking at serotonin and dopamine levels and neuro-transmitter measurements, I wonder if there’s any research out there, we might have to come back to that one in another article. But I’d be really interested to see if there has been studies on those neurotransmitter releases during periods of solo time and contemplation. I’m going to put that there for myself to actually follow up with that one.

M: I think that the, so if you go do what we were talking about a couple of episodes ago with flow, you go right or there’s definite links to what happens in the brain when you meditate. I definitely think that when they’re talking about solo time, they’re talking about the exact activities that are leading to those changes in your brain that are giving you positive effect.

P: And it’s not just in the brain but in your whole Central Nervous System, that all follows through.

Three steps to being alone as opposed to being lonely. Marie?

M: Sure. So we’ve got three steps here to help you if you’re wondering how to go about this so firstly schedule it, schedule alone time. If you feel every waking hour with family, friends and activities, being alone might feel a bit weird to start with, so first thing to do is schedule me time. Another big trend that we’re seeing a lot right now is the self-care trend, and this, this ties in very nicely with that. So plan a date with yourself block out your calendar and tell your family you’re taking some time for you.

Secondly, find an activity that works for you. So once you’ve got that time blocked out and you’ve prioritised it. There are many things you can choose to do, and the only limitation is that you do it alone and without interruptions so you could plan a self-care or pamper date with yourself. Go to the spa, get a massage, have a long bath. Or you could go to a coffee shop or a space you enjoy and read a book for a few hours. You could maybe sign up to learn something like meditation or yoga or go for a walk in nature or plan to do something awe inspiring, which we’ve also spoken about and which can definitely give you all of those positive. Yeah serotonin. And do you want to do the third one, Pete?

P: Yeah, Being mindful. Once you’ve scheduled that me time put that in your diary and so forth, definitely sure you can get the benefits. That means turning off the phone, making sure that you don’t get interrupted. Making sure that outside influences don’t impact on that alone time, and that can be difficult at first, it’s like doing meditation. There are Monks out there who talk about meditation being so difficult it’s really hard to sit with. It is, Monks spend their lives dedicated to perfecting that that craft. But just because you’re starting with meditation doesn’t mean you need to be good at it. You could be a bad meditator. You can sit there, and go that’s five minutes and I’m done, I’m checking out and that’s fine [be]cause it’s five minutes and it’s a start. So making sure that you set that time aside and be disciplined with yourself, so turning off the TV and Radio, the phone the computer and all that stuff. Setting expectations that you won’t be contacted, understanding that you need to be focused on this five minutes. So if It’s only five minutes, make it a good five minutes. Really invest in it. Appreciate the moments and take the time to allow those thoughts and that, spontaneous things to drop in.

M: Okay, so three steps again, schedule your alone time, find an activity that works for you and be mindful with your alone time. All right, that’s all we have time for today. So thanks for joining us. If you want to hear more, please remember to subscribe and like this podcast.

P: And remember you called Abby…

M: until next time.

P & M: Bye

Meet besties Marie and Pete

Marie and Pete

Marie Skelton is an Australian writer, speaker, and change and resiliency expert. She started her career in journalism before working in public affairs and then specialising in organisational and culture change for some of the world’s largest tech and financial services companies, both in Australia and the U.S. She also played volleyball for Australia and on scholarship at a D1 university in the U.S. and she captained the NSW Women’s Volleyball team in the Australian Volleyball League.

Following a motorbike accident that nearly took her life, and leg, she began researching change and resiliency to find out how people cope with major life changes and why some people are really good at dealing with whatever life throws at them, while others struggle. She is passionate about mental health and writes about how to cope with today’s Change Storm and maintain mental wellness.  

Marie and Pete

Peter Furness is just plain awesome. He loves unicorns and champagne. Pete is the owner of Max Remedial, and a qualified remedial therapist and has worked all over the world with professional athletes, dancers, sporting organisations and medical professionals. Peter’s practice is influenced by his interest in Eastern philosophy and he works closely with Chinese and Ayurvedic practitioners, approaching the body from the principles of ancient medicine.

Peter has practiced Asstanga Yoga for 20 years and combines these principles with his approach to health.

Peter was also an award-winning contemporary dancer in Australia and in the UK. 

Take Back Control of Your Clutter with Pilar Llorente (E6)

by

Happiness for Cynics podcast –episode 6

International sensation Marie Kondo has helped millions of people tidy up and find joy. Today’s guest, Pilar Llorente from Neatly Awesome, is one of 8 Konmari consultants in Australia. She joins us to explain why Konmari is about so much more than your stuff.

Transcription

M: You’re listening to the podcast happiness for cynics. I’m Marie Skelton, a writer, speaker and change and resilience expert, and my co-host is Pete.

P: Hi there. I’m Peter Furness. I’m a remedial massage therapist, dance and movement practitioner, yoga loving global adventurer. Each week we will bring to you the latest news and research in the world of positive psychology, otherwise known as happiness. Now, Marie, you’ve also got a blog on this topic, right?

M: Yes, you can find my podcast at happiness for cynics.com or visit marieskelton.com for articles and resources on change and resiliency as well as happiness and finding balance in today’s busy world. The site talks about a lot of the same research we talk about here on the podcast and has some really practical tips for bringing joy and happiness into your life.

P: So let’s get into it. Cynics the world over. It’s time to suck it up get happy.

[Happy music]

M: Today we’re going to talk about clutter and stress. Many of you would have heard about the international sensation Marie Kondo, who’s helped millions of people tidy up and find joy. I’m excited to welcome our guest today. Certified Konmari consultant Pilar Llorente is the founder of Neatly Awesome, based here in Sydney. She uses the Marie Kondo method, which is a holistic approach to help clients get rid of clutter and chaos in their life. You can find her site at neatlyawesome.com. So, Pilar, you’re one of only eight Konmari consultants in the whole of Australia. Can you tell me a little bit about what that means?

Pilar: Sure. So after reading the books, well, one day I came to my husband and I say I’m going to learn them for a week, so could you please to stay with the kids for a week. I chased… yeah I chased Marie Kondo to London to attend a seminar to be able to become a Konmari consultant. It was 110 people there from 33 different nationalities and it was really good. It was a great experience. It was very intense; and then I have to submit a lot of reports and photos with my clients and I’m very proud and honoured to say that I’m one of just eight Konmari consultants in Australia. So what I do is motivate my customers, my clients in their journey and I like to think about like I am the connector between their belongings and the hidden essence they represent.

M: And what kind of lessons do you teach then, what do you uncover or unhide?

Pilar: Well, the thing with clutter is that there is always something behind that, right and the method makes you confront your belongings and you really need to think and be really honest with yourself and think about why you bring that thing in your life and into your home in the first place. And in the end, you are able to understand the purpose that thing in your life. You are able to understand why it is difficult to let go or while you bring in the first place. So there is always an ‘unmask’ recently having every single thing in our home and that’s a very important part off the process is [to] learn all those lessons.

M: OK. So, can you tell me about what you do when you go into someone’s home? How does it work?

Pilar: Well the Konmari method, it’s basically we work by categories, not by locations, so we start with clothes and then books and then papers, komono [miscellaneous] and then we do the sentimental items. We discard those items that no longer spark joy in our life and we keep those things that really speak to our heart and those things with that we are letting go, we thank them for their services. And this is a deeply personal work and it requires confronting your past, in vision your future and taking action in the present. Okay, so the first thing I do when I get my clients is to understand why they want to do this process and it has to be a very powerful on good reason behind it. So, if you just want a clean home, it will not do because you need to be very clear, because that’s the thing that will help you when you encounter all those challenges, or when you feel that is just too much.

You think about that, about that way, and you will be able to get through that. So that could be something like, I want to spend this time cleaning and spend more time with my family with people with a person I love and it will take you through that. So after we are very clear in our vision way need to start going through every single thing in your home and you need to ask yourself ‘Does this spark joy to me?’

We need to try to keep this very positive. So it’s not about discard, discard and take to the rubbish bin, but it’s more about keeping the focus on the things you’ve really love and appreciate those things. So it’s like opposition training. Okay, so one of you wants to decide between the red top and the pink top and you decide, Okay I’ll take the red one. Then you do that for 50 or 100 items, and then you go to your books and then you think OK, this one, I have read just one page, this when I read a chapter, but I’m hook[ed] with the book. Or you think, Oh wow I didn’t even remember having this book in here and then you do this with every single thing in your home. So when you get to the sentimental items, which is the most difficult part and you find that great [item] or that person that you love, but it is no longer in your life. You will know the answer, would you keep it or would you let it go? Because the answer there would be in your heart.

M: Aahh… So there is method to the madness. You do the easy stuff first.

Pilar: [Laugh] Yes.

M: So, the reason that I was really interested to talk to you is that our podcast is about happiness. And there’s a lot going on in the world today and a lot of stress that people are feeling in general. And I’ve recently read an article that says that clutter and mess can really impact our stress levels. Have you noticed, while working with your customers, whether stress has gotten better or if anyone has anyone said anything to you about stress levels after they’ve worked with you?

Pilar: Oh, yes, definitely. So thing is that all that physical clutter becomes mental clutter as well. So if we have things in our home that we don’t need, use or love, our minds are probably full of those things too, right. And this method is about the idea that everything has a purpose and when you think about that, you can see the big picture. Okay. When I first started doing this method it was because big things that were established were taking a big role in my life and I spent too much time worrying about those things. But then, because part of the process is the gratitude power, when you are able to feel this gratitude to things it kind of re wires your brain and you can focus on the joy on what you love. So for example, the morning I can see that some of my clients they rush in the morning, it’s really bad, so there are things on the floor, everything is a mess, you can see all the laundry that you won’t be able to do today and probably not tomorrow and you start worrying and then your kids are yelling “Where is my backpack, where is my homework!”

[Laughter]

Pilar: All that stress is building and building and then you are late and then you are in front of your closet thinking ‘Oh gosh, I have nothing to wear today’, so you end up putting [on] something that doesn’t fit you, you don’t feel comfortable with that. And then you run to the bath[room] stuff and you are already late. You are already all sweaty. So you go from the bath[room] thinking. ‘Oh, wow I already have a fight with my husband. Everything is a big mess.’ And you get to work and then in your desk, you see all those papers, you just procrastinate and you think ‘I will never be able to go through these things.’

So it’s like a big snow ball that grows and grows until you feel like you are not in control of your life or your stuff and this is very stressful. But when you are able to go through this method and then your space is clicking not just the physical space but your mental space. You can start focusing really on what’s really important and you will be able to concentrate on really do a stuff because your mind is in the right state to do this.

M: This is great. It’s like a little intervention if you’re feeling too stressed or too overwhelmed with busy lives. It is a great way that you can get some, I think you said it perfectly, some control over a small thing in your life which can become so big, but it also has flow on effects to your mind and your wellbeing. Magic.

[Laughter]

M: Okay, Can you tell me about one of your success stories. Can you tell us a client’s story? Feel free to give them a fake name. But can you, can you think of someone that you’ve worked with, where they came from, and maybe what the outcomes of working with you have been?

Pilar: Okay, so I think the impact of the method is more in a spiritual and emotional level, OK. And because those prostrations teach us about ourselves. And is not about anymore hiding things using storage, but really confronting this stuff. So most of my clients get to those points of ‘Oh wow, this is powerful.’ I remember having a client we were doing the Konmari cat -the komono category, sorry, and we were going through all the dinnerware and she has lots and lots of plates. And I say, what do you have like so many plates here? She say ‘Okay, those are very important, people, when people come to my place and they’re very special, I don’t want to use them every day’ and then she has like lots plates that they were like, a bit old and chipped and, and I say, OK, I say how you feel about using your special dinnerware every day and she say ‘No, no, no, no, no. I’m scared that if I use it every day it may break and you know all those memories I have it would be broken too. And then I think No, no, no. The memories will always be there. You don’t need the actual object to remember those beautiful feelings when you used a dinnerware. How about instead of keeping that for special occasions, Imagine if you use that dinnerware every single day, every single day you will remember all those memories, those precious moments and when you say this is just for special people, it get me thinking. Don’t you feel special enough to use this every single day and her eyes they just light up and she was ‘oh you are right, I will use every single day!’

M: [Laugh]

Pilar: So it’s that change in your in your perspective of things on what is really important and to give you that power. That decision power of thinking to think ‘Ok, I bring this into my life with this purpose, so I’m going to use for that purpose.

M: Yep. Okay, so you seem so passionate about this.

Pilar: Thank you.

M: How did you get involved in it? What made you buy a ticket to London and go halfway around the world?

Pilar: Um, I have to be honest. I have never been a particularly organised person and I used to blame everybody for it. So back in Colombia used to blame my sister for it. Then I got married and everything was my poor husband fault. And then when I have my kids, it was very easy to blame it on them because they could not defend their selves, right? So everything was their fault and then, when I read the book, I discovered that the problem was not them. The problem was my relationship with my belongings and how I didn’t appreciated them enough, um… and then I realised also that I used to blame people for my mess. I was blaming people as well for the things I have failed at or getting it to do. And that was very powerful. So when I did the Konmari process at home, I have real changes in my life. I remember my husband saying ‘Women what is happening to you?’

[Laughter]

Pilar: And then he’s like, suddenly you’re a very confident woman that just want to try everything and do everything and I say yes because I have the mental space to think and dream about big things. So that’s why I decided to do this because I cannot keep this to myself. I want to share the joy of living and this feeling of lightness and freedom when you are able to go through this process.

M: Wow, that’s really powerful. That’s something else that I imagine was pretty powerful. I see a photo of you with Marie Kondo. Did you meet her and get to? I know that she doesn’t speak English very well, but maybe through a translator did you did you get to speak to her while you were on your course?

Pilar: Yes. The first time she came into the room, it was amazing. She’s quite small, I’m not that tall and I look like a giant next to her, but she has this presence and this energy and when she came into the room, everything was so peaceful. Some people was crying. I tried not to cry –

M: [Laugh]

Pilar: -but she started speaking in Japanese and it was another person translated to any of it. But I swear I felt like she was talking directly to me just to me, because of the power of the, of the method of her voice and what she preaches. So it was a great experience and because everybody there was, like in the same page. It was an unbelievable experience. She’s very sweet, she is.

M: All right, so we’re, we’re just wrapping up with time here. But before you go, you’re based in Sydney, and you do take, are you looking for new clients?

Pilar: Of course. Yes. I love to help as many people as I can, so yes.

M: Okay, so we’ll leave your website address in a way for people to contact you at the end of the podcast, and we’ll also put it on our website. But before you do go, can you leave our listeners just with a little taste, maybe three little tips that can help them get some control over the clutter in their lives.

Pilar: Of course.

So the 1st one I think, is the folding. I think the folding is very important because when you fold things with the Konmari method, you can see everything you have. Everything will be a glance. So because we tend to use the clothes that are at the front or at the top of the pile. But when they are just there, you will be able to use all your clothes and that’s the first tip.

The 2nd one is definitely act in your intuition. Follow your intuition and things will begin to connect and it will bring greater things into your life.

The 3rd one is honour all those things that you are saying goodbye to, so keep up with the lessons, stay sure. So next time you see a size six dress that is 70% off, go back to that time where you found the dress and you hold in your hands and you say ‘Dress, thank you so much for showing me I’m not a size six, but more of a size 10 or 12 and now you can go and serve someone that we look amazing in this dress and you will remember that and that would be very powerful in your buying decisions. So organised clutter is still clutter so we need to get rid of all those things.

M: Yes, absolutely very wise words. Thank you very much for your time and for talking to our listeners and we’ll definitely put your contact details at the end of our podcast so people can reach out to you.

Pilar: Thank you very much. Thank you.

M: Thank you.

Thanks for joining us today. If you want to hear more, please remember to subscribe and like this podcast. And if you’re in Sydney and need a bit of a de-clutter yourself, you can find contact details for Pilar on her site at neatlyawesome.com

Thanks until next time.

Meet besties Marie and Pete

Marie and Pete

Marie Skelton is an Australian writer, speaker, and change and resiliency expert. She started her career in journalism before working in public affairs and then specialising in organisational and culture change for some of the world’s largest tech and financial services companies, both in Australia and the U.S. She also played volleyball for Australia and on scholarship at a D1 university in the U.S. and she captained the NSW Women’s Volleyball team in the Australian Volleyball League.

Following a motorbike accident that nearly took her life, and leg, she began researching change and resiliency to find out how people cope with major life changes and why some people are really good at dealing with whatever life throws at them, while others struggle. She is passionate about mental health and writes about how to cope with today’s Change Storm and maintain mental wellness.  

Marie and Pete

Peter Furness is just plain awesome. He loves unicorns and champagne. Pete is the owner of Max Remedial, and a qualified remedial therapist and has worked all over the world with professional athletes, dancers, sporting organisations and medical professionals. Peter’s practice is influenced by his interest in Eastern philosophy and he works closely with Chinese and Ayurvedic practitioners, approaching the body from the principles of ancient medicine.

Peter has practiced Asstanga Yoga for 20 years and combines these principles with his approach to health.

Peter was also an award-winning contemporary dancer in Australia and in the UK. 

What is Flow and How to Find it (E5)

by

Happiness for Cynics podcast – episode 5

Today we’re talking about flow, a concept made famous by one of the pioneers of positive psychology Mihály Csíkszentmihályi. Flow is about being truly engaged in the moment. Being in a state of flow means you’re completely focused on the task at hand, so happy in the moment that you forget yourself and the world around you.

Want more on flow? Check out our article on What is a State of Flow and How to Find it or download our infographic on finding flow.

Subscribe so you don’t miss out! We’re working on new episodes as we speak. Check back here, or subscribe.

Transcription

M: You’re listening to the podcast happiness for cynics. I’m Marie Skelton, a writer and change and transformation expert, and my co-host is Peter Furness.

P: Hi there I’m Peter Furness Remedial Therapist, ex-performer and happiness junky. We aim to bring you the best in research and personal experience in topics that generate that state of happiness, which we all want to get more of. The 101 of how to get happy. Marie, you have the links to all this info on your website? Yes?

M: Yes. So you can find me at marieskelton.com and that’s a site about major life changes and transitions and how to cope with them. And the site uses a lot of the same research we talk about here on the podcast and has some really practical tips for bringing joy and happiness into your life. You can also find me on Twitter. My handle is @MarieSkelton. So on today’s episode, which is all about flow.

[Happy music]

M: Today we’re talking about flow, a concept made famous by one of the pioneers of positive psychology.

P: Here we go Muz, come on we know you can do this. [laugh]

M: A guy who happens to have 16 letters in his last name. So please forgive me if I miss-pronounce this Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

P: Oh well done Muz

[Laughter]

P: I’m not sure what nationality he is. He’s Jewish isn’t he?

M: He is and unfortunately… like so many others. Viktor Frankl would be another so many others who experienced the atrocities off the Second World War and the camps. A lot of people came out of that experience with a lot of questions about life, the meaning of life and happiness and, you know, why we’re here. So he is definitely one of the pioneers of the positive psychology field or movement, if you want to call it that. And he coined the term flow, and that’s what we’re talking about today.

P: What is Flow? We have a definition here.

One of the quotes from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is ‘The best moments in our lives and not the passive, receptive, relaxing times. The best moments usually occur if a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.’

P: I think this is talking about that moment where you are so obsessed with a project or a performance or an article that you are in that lovely little zone that we all talk about where everything around you is extraneous and you’re not even thinking about your own personal life or anything like that.

It’s all about the task at hand.

M: To take it further it could be something actually quite mundane, but it’s about that moment when you lose time, right?

P: Yeah, there’s a couple of points in here where people talk about what/how to achieve a state of flow and of them is that you actually lose track of time, so I’ll get to the others here:

When you’re in a state of flow, you are completely focused on the task at hand; You forget about yourself, about others and about the world around you; You lose track of time; You feel happy and in control; and you are creative in the productive moment.

P: I particularly like that last one

M: [Laugh]

P: I feel like I have a particular authority on this one, being an ex-performance artist because that state of flow that state of complete obsession, where you are completely in that little shimmering moment it’s kind of the focus of the performing artist. It’s what you train for so that you don’t have to think about putting your foot in a certain position or holding the violin in that certain way. That’s all trained into you. You practise so much so that when we come to perform, you completely immerse yourself in that performance and you go with the flow.

M: Yeah, I don’t agree with you there Pete

P: Oh excellent! I like it when we don’t agree, this is where we get good.

[Laughter]

M: Absolutely and being an ex-athlete, I completely understand. With training so that your body remembers without you having to put thought and effort into remembering. So I get that, the moment as an athlete where you’re on and everything is working and it flows. I get that, for me flow as Mihaly talks about it in the positive psychology arena is completely separate from necessarily being a creative or sporting endeavour and the best moments of flow for me have been at work, and I think that everyone around the world can achieve flow and get the satisfaction that that rings.

P: Yes

M: And it’s not just for the elite few who are dancers, performers, athletes, et cetera. It’s something that people should be striving to bring into their lives in general because it comes with so many benefits. So, like last week when we spoke about awe bringing benefits, the science behind this one is again, like with awe and like with the default mode network or DMN that we spoke about when your mind’s on autopilot, we spend most of our time in that space, whereas flow brings you out of that space just like a awe does, and so does meditation for some people. It brings you out of that space into a less ego-centric space. And there’s some real positive benefits to your sense of satisfaction with life that come from that.

P: Definitely, I could definitely support that and I don’t mean to say that you have to be an elite athlete or anything to experience that level of flow and just to qualify what I said in terms of capturing that it doesn’t always happen in performance. And I guess for me because my dancing was my work, that was my work. So it’s exactly the same I achieved in work, but it didn’t always happen on stage sometimes it happened in class. As a dancer you walk into the studio, the first hour of your dance day is spent doing as a contemporary or classical dancer you do class every day. And it’s incredibly indulgent way to start the morning because it’s all about you. You walk into that space and the teacher or ballet mistress or whoever it is that’s taking the class, starts an exercise and you lock in and off you go and that could be  [laugh] a slight negative because having that attitude being all about you. “Don’t talk to me before I go to class!”, so I would get there 45 minutes before class and do my little warm up and people are coming in, and it’s like “No, I’m in the corner you don’t come near me’, particularly in a small group of people. There’s about seven people in this company. And you don’t come in and start chatting straightaway, I would have my earphones on and be in downward dog or whatever I chose to do and you don’t come near me. And then that carries through into the class a little bit, where we’re standing next to each other and sweating. No talking. This is my class. This is all about me.

[Laughter]

P: So that aside again it brings into play the focus. So where you sharpen that focus and you exclude the outside world. It brings you into that state where flow can happen, and I have had experiences in the past where you do, you come out of a class and it’s just a normal class it’s something you do every day but you’re like “OMG that was amazing!” and then you think there’s no way I can reproduce that, I can’t reproduce that, or I hope I get to reproduce that and that’s an interesting subtext in there about this concept of flow is how do you hang onto it you and in a way like everything Zen you can’t hold onto it you’ve just got to try to aim for it again.

M: I think the research shows you can create the environment that enables you to find it.

P: Yeah, you can create the environment but you’re not guaranteed on finding it each time. And that’s where the discipline comes of trying to tap in to/creating that environment where the flow can happen. But it might happen today. It might not happen tomorrow. You can’t want that and go “well I’ve got the environment ready why isn’t it happening, come on this is supposed to happen now. You can’t necessarily predict that, or expect that to be… again expectation come into it, expect that to be the result.

M: Yep and I think the way that the workplace has changed in the way that society and the world is changing with, you know the pinging of our social media and our phones and open office plans where people can walk past even if they’re not actually coming up and talking to you, in an office they can walk past and they’re in your peripheral. And so your ability to have a few hours of uninterrupted thinking time where you put your brain to solving a problem or two, doing work is, it’s so much harder to find that nowadays –

P: – in a corporate environment

M: in a corporate environment but also at home, if you’ve got kids, you’ve got your phone on, there’s so much technology and so many demands on our time right now. And I think you nailed it when you’re talking about your mornings and telling everyone to leave you the f – alone.

[Laughter]

M: It’s one of the key things that you need to do to find flow.

It is: Stop the distractions. Right?

So it is definitely a moment for you, with you.

P: Yes, I like that. For you, with you.

M: Yeah, that you need to protect in order to ever get anywhere near that and for me I find writing, I can definitely find flow, and I’ll look up and the suns set. [Laugh]

P: Oh yeah.

M: and ‘Oh, where did the day go’ [Laugh] and I’ve been really lucky recently to have some time out of the corporate world to explore other projects, and I’ve been finding flow left, right and centre. I’d like to call them rabbit holes normally.

[Laughter]

M: I’ve been learning/just recently watched a blog as you know we mentioned the beginning of the show and I’ve been learning about search engine optimisation and about security of my site and the information there and Ecommerce, and I can find that I’ll go down that rabbit hole and be learning and applying this information and again I’ll look up and 10 hours later, I forgot to have lunch and I’m really busting to go to the loo [Laugh] you know, where did the day go? I think that it comes from me having an environment here at home where I’m working where, you know, apart from my cat who will vomit (in previous episodes as well), I have a calm environment, where I can sit on my balcony, feel the sun and not be interrupted for hours and hours  on end.

P: And as you say it’s easy when you can create the environment to do that. It is harder to achieve that status flow when you are in a communal environment for example. However, I think sometimes it’s easy to access it if you can control certain elements. I remember when I was writing my major essay for my degree, I actually went into cafes to write. It was the thing I had to write about had to do with café culture, so I was actually sitting in cafes and writing essays. But that controlling mechanism was to have earphones on, have music playing, and it doesn’t have to be Mozart or these things that everyone say about taping into the creative it can just be a drone, but that drone can create a sound barrier which sharpens the focus. The other thing is coffee.

[Laughter]

P: If I can have a coffee in front of me, it was like right I’m engaged and I am engaged in the activity at hand and it brings me into that focus and I could go for about an hour, hour and a half just with that moment. And the owners of the café were probably thinking ‘Is he going to order anything? Get out of the way, we’ve got lunch service coming up.’

[Laughter]

P: I think if you could control certain elements of the environment, you can harness that flow and like any good activity you form a habit. The more you do it, the more you can take control of certain elements the more you can pull yourself into that space where flow can happen.

M: Yeah, absolutely. There’s a great app, just a circle back with what you’re saying. There’s great app called Coffitivity, which a lot of writers probably already know. Rather than playing Mozart the app plays indistinct coffee shop noises. So there’s a murmur of voices, but you can never quite work out what they’re saying. You can’t actually wrap your head around a word. There’s people talking and there’s coffee cups chinking –

P: – It’s like that scene out of Madagascar “Someone left the ambiance on!” and they turn it off and it’s just the sound of NY City in the background.

M: [Laugh]

P: So why flow? Why have flow?  

M: Why have flow. You know it was like as I was saying before it’s, it’s like awe and meditation. It gets you out of that autopilot part of our brain and into using and engaging, the key word there is engaging, with the world in a really deep way.

So, apart from the satisfaction of spending time on a task and completing a task, it also increases your productivity. So we all know whether we believe it or not, or whether we follow it or not. But if your phones constantly pinging and you’ve got people saying, Mom, what’s for dinner and phone rings and etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Whatever it is that you’re doing is constantly being interrupted is not going to be the most efficient use of your time. Your productivity won’t be at its peak because of those interruptions, so flow optimises your productivity and from that you get a huge amount of satisfaction, so it reduces stress, you enjoy yourself more when you’re lost in that task, you get things done obviously, and you achieve things.

P: I’m going to jump in there with a slightly different take on that. Some of the research that I’ve been reading from people like Nelson and Rawlings from the Oxford Academic journal, University of Maryland. They talk about floating a very Zen concept. So bringing Zen concept of mindfulness into play. It’s about harnessing your immediate focus and training yourself to be perfectly in the moment, sharpening your mind and your focus to rid yourself of extraneous thought and basically filtering out the noise. I can see you formulating an idea here Marie and I can see we are going to disagree again, I love it!

[Laughter]

M: I got nothing.

P: WeII, It’s funny because these guys also talk about Zen practice is taking the rational and intellectual mind out of the mental loop. So that’s why you [disagree] because you’re so rational and intellectual. [Laugh]

M: No, no, no, I fully agree with mindfulness. I just don’t think that it’s tied to flow.

P: Interesting.

M: I do not practise mindfulness. I find personally, and not that I don’t think that it has benefits. I just haven’t ever gone there. There’s limited time and too many things to do as we’ll discover when we get to Episode 557 of happiness.

[Laughter]

M: There’s so much that you can do in your life, and you do have to make choices for me my mindfulness comes from exercise in the gym and I get the mental resilience and mental peace and Zen centring from hard exercise.

P: There’s loads of schools of thought supporting, so we’ll look into that.

M: And that’s me and if I didn’t do exercise or couldn’t do exercise or didn’t want to do exercise maybe I’d try and find that mental centring from meditation or any of that kind of thing. So mindfulness and being mindful in the moment and being focused. Absolutely, I agree with. Meditation. Haven’t, haven’t gone down that route and I guess to circle back to your original statement, I find flow often and regularly when I can just tackle a difficult task that I know I can do. So it can’t be too difficult where I’m overwhelmed with and give up, but something where I can tackle a difficult task and do it.

P: Yeah, and that taps into another quote by Csikszentmihalyi regarding flow and its, I like this, ‘when your skill level and the challenge at hand are at an equal level.’

And I think that that is something that everyone can tap into

M: So there’s one other thing that I do want to mention and it’s the idea with flow of intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation and Mihaly again talks about, about this. So there’s a great book out there [a] couple years old now called ‘Drive’ by Daniel H. Pink. He talks about motivation and motivation one point o [1.0] was: me hungry, me eat, you know, cave man; drive two point o [2.0], which is very much how a lot of corporate is still set up is: I will pay you, you will do things.

P: [Laugh] Yep

M: You will want to do things, right? Your motivation is tied to, you know, or Pavlov’s dog, I’ll give you food so you’ll go do stuff. What Dan argues in his book is that we’re far more complex beings than that.

P: [Laugh]

M: There isn’t such a one on one relationship with motivation and drive and flow is a great example. I’m not getting paid for my blog at the moment. You know, I’m very excited that there’s people out there who want to read it and not just my mom.

P: [Laugh]

M: But I have great satisfaction and find flow often in writing and researching those articles, and it’s an intrinsic motivation that is driving me to do that. It is not the possibility of being paid for it because that doesn’t exist right now. And so there’s an intrinsic part of this flow you’ve got to want to dive into the task your performing.

P: You have to be invested –

M: – personally, and it can’t be others that are telling you to do it. So the second you lose your love for dance you’re not going to find your flow.

P: Exactly. Yeah definitely.

M: You’re not going to be productive and happy all of a sudden in your job. If you hate your job and you’re only there because it gives you a wage.

P: Yeah, absolutely. I see that all the time actually.

M: Yep. Absolutely. All right. We’re running low on time, so we should probably wrap up. But I’d be really interested in hearing from our audience on this one. What do you think, Pete?

P: How to harness flow. How do we do it? When have you achieved it? And How? Have a think about it.

M: Write into the podcast and we will have a read, maybe next week of anything that’s come in. And I’d love to hear what it is that you’ve done over the next week and let us know what you did, whether you found flow. You know, maybe you shipped your kids off to the neighbours, told your husband to go out for beers or something. And what did you do? Was it cooking? Was it writing? How did you find flow in your day to day life? Let us know.

P: Nice, we’d love to hear from you.

M: All right. Well, that’s all we have time for today, as always thanks for joining us. If you want any more, please remember to subscribe and like this podcast, we’ll see you next week.

P: See you next week, bye.

Meet besties Marie and Pete

Marie and Pete

Marie Skelton is an Australian writer, speaker, and change and resiliency expert. She started her career in journalism before working in public affairs and then specialising in organisational and culture change for some of the world’s largest tech and financial services companies, both in Australia and the U.S. She also played volleyball for Australia and on scholarship at a D1 university in the U.S. and she captained the NSW Women’s Volleyball team in the Australian Volleyball League.

Following a motorbike accident that nearly took her life, and leg, she began researching change and resiliency to find out how people cope with major life changes and why some people are really good at dealing with whatever life throws at them, while others struggle. She is passionate about mental health and writes about how to cope with today’s Change Storm and maintain mental wellness.  

Marie and Pete

Peter Furness is just plain awesome. He loves unicorns and champagne. Pete is the owner of Max Remedial, and a qualified remedial therapist and has worked all over the world with professional athletes, dancers, sporting organisations and medical professionals. Peter’s practice is influenced by his interest in Eastern philosophy and he works closely with Chinese and Ayurvedic practitioners, approaching the body from the principles of ancient medicine.

Peter has practiced Asstanga Yoga for 20 years and combines these principles with his approach to health.

Peter was also an award-winning contemporary dancer in Australia and in the UK. 

Bringing Awe and Inspiration into Your Life (E4)

by

Happiness for Cynics podcast – episode 4

Experiencing awe is about being engaged with the wonder of life. Tune in to hear why you need more awe in your life and how to find it!

Want more on awe? Check out our article on awe-inspiring activities or download our inspiration infographic.

Subscribe so you don’t miss out! We’re working on new episodes as we speak. Check back here, or subscribe!

Transcription

P: Hi there. You’re listening to the podcast happiness for cynics. I’m Peter Furness, remedial therapist, ex dancer and happiness aficionado. And each week, we’re bringing you news and research in the world of positive psychology and happiness. My co-host is Marie Skelton.

M: Yes. Thanks, Peter. Hi, everyone. I’m Marie Skelton, a writer, speaker and change expert. I also write about this topic at marieskelton.com, it’s a site about major life changes and transitions and how to cope with them, the site uses a lot of the same research we talk about here on the podcast and has some really practical tips for bringing joy and happiness into your life. You can also find me on Twitter at Marie Skelton.

P: So on to today’s episode, which is all about all awe and inspiration.

[Happy intro music]

M: So today we’re talking about awe and inspiration. I guess we should probably start with what is it?

P: Absolutely, let’s go for it.

M: So experiencing awe is about being engaged with the wonder of life I like to think of awe as life’s exclamation marks. They punctuate our lives in rare and special moments. So Collins dictionary if we get to what everyone else is saying, the definition –

P: Let’s get some scientific references in there Marie, you know you love it with science references.

M: [Laugh] Collins dictionary says awe is the feeling of respect and amazement that you have when you’re faced with something wonderful and often rather frightening.

P: I like that they put frightening in there. [Laugh]

M: Yeah, there’s less in our lives that’s frightening now. But if you take a wider view of the definition of frightening, I think you can expand it to those moments where you’re just standing somewhere that makes you feel small and it’s frightening and its vastness or its size or greatness.

P: I guess what I like about frightening is that if something scares, you should give it a crack, [laugh] it’s taking you outside of your comfort zone, taking you outside of your known sphere.

M: Seize the day, right.

P: Come on, let’s change this stuff. [Be]cause change comes from doing something I haven’t done before. So for me frightening is a great letter. I’m not necessarily scared of being frightened. That’s not a very good use of tautology.

[Laughter]

P: Fear is good lever, it’s a good lever that pushes you forward.

M: Absolutely, so I think it’s worth noting that it’s a very subjective thing awe or inspiration. So some people find awe and wonder regularly and small things and big things around them, while others are only experiencing awe occasionally and it’s different for every person.

P: Very much I find that awe can be the big moments, but it can almost be those small moments when you’re walking through the street, and one of the things that I’m very aware of is our ability to disconnect, disconnect from our phones and from our tablets and from our laptops and so forth and just look around you. Sometimes there are really inspiring amazing moments happening and we miss them, miss them all the time. It’s about finding those daily ones. So one of the great examples is walking through the mall and hearing a beautiful piano accordion with a violinist playing by some buskers. Sometimes you can actually stop and listen and be semi inspired by them, not even semi inspired, sometimes completely inspired. It’s just taking the time to notice those little moments and go ‘Wow, that’s really quite incredible.’

M: Yeah, so it’s about being mindful, firstly, in a way and mindful is word that comes to mind there it’s really easy to just go through life and not take the time to notice those things.

P: Yes

M: There’s also some really great research that I’ve read into our perceptions of time and how, as a kid, I don’t know if you remember a three hour car trip as a kid just felt like –

P: – EEuuggh.. So many six hour car trips with my Father in the Bedford in western New South Wales with no iPod no iPhone thank you! Not even a book.

M: And no air con

P: [laugh] Oh my god, yes!

M: And you couldn’t wind the windows down because we were on the highway.

P: The 200 kilometres stretch from Nyngan to Cobar that is a dead straight road.

M: [laugh] So, that just felt like forever and nowadays, you know we’ve just passed into 2020 and I don’t know where 2019 went. It feels like the whole year just flew by so quickly. And there’s some great research into how humans perceive time and one of the things that they look at is as kids everything is new. Everything is new and so we notice everything.

P: Yes

M: And our days are filled with new things to learn about a notice and as we get older, we spend a lot more time I think, on autopilot.

P: Yep, it takes a lot more to impress us.

M: Yep or we’re not being mindful with the life that we do have

P: True

M: As you were saying, so awe for me is about being a kid again. It’s that wonder as a kid.

P: Getting that moment and admitting to yourself ‘That’s wonderful’ I’m going to spend the time and actually –

M: – Enjoy it.

P: Yeah enjoy it. Notice it. Clock it.

M: Yeah. So what are some other moments that you can refer to Pete in your life that have brought you awe?

P: It’s also about those big moments as well so one of the one of the moments for me was when I first started working on my own. So I transitioned from being a dancer into a remedial therapist and I was working for a company and I was pretty much starting again. So I spent about three years, three and 1/2 years working 6 to 7 days a week on no holiday. And I was on this loop of just keeping on going, through each month. Just going, Yep, keep going. Keep going. It was only until my business coach, Wally Salinger, said to me, “Pete, when are you having a holiday?” I’m like I don’t do holidays. “Oh, you really should.” [laugh]

M: There’s a recipe for burnout. [laugh]

P: Exactly, completely and It’s interesting when I got into that rotation, of just keeping on going, keeping on going. I wasn’t stopping and smelling the roses. I wasn’t necessarily going ‘oh isn’t this beautiful.’ I was living in Sydney and so forth and it was lovely and I wake up living in Pott’s Point looking out at the harbour thinking isn’t this pretty. But then I was like right work go and back into my routine. So Wally actually insisted that I take a holiday… I needed a break. So he bought me my 1st 2 night’s accommodation in the Netherlands. So I got to Amsterdam on and I had time and space and I was wandering around Amsterdam, riding a bicycle and doing yoga in the Park.

M: Of course you were.

P: [Laugh]

M: Let me just say, by the way, how many life coaches buy you two nights in the Netherlands?

P: [Laugh] Yeah, it’s not bad. It was amazing because I remember having time to go into museums, and walking into this room and seeing this 20 foot high painting, a Rembrandt, and thinking ‘I feel amazing’ that’s what awe can do.

M: Yeah, So let’s maybe take a look at the neuroscience or the science behind it. So what’s going on when people are experiencing awe?

P: OK, so when you’re going through a normal day your brain is on autopilot, you’re in default mode you’re going to the normal actions. You getting your coffee, going past the newsstand that you go past 20 times a day, all that sort of stuff. There’s not much going on and the older we get, the less often our brain is distracted with the new distracted by inspiration being around awe inspiring events or sequences. This shakes this up. It makes us see things that take us into a new experience. We’re taking notice of more things. There’s more ‘Oh Shiny’ moments.

[Laughter]

P: Research in the Netherlands has actually discovered that when we’re fully immersed in experiencing awe it switches on our brains so we engage more with our external world and less with ourselves and I think that’s a really important point. It draws our focus outward. All our worries about the mortgage, the electricity payments, all that sort of stuff that seems to get a little bit softer when we’re in a scene that is overlooking a cliff face into an ocean.

M: There’s also a lot of research into the importance of experiencing awe and the benefits. And it’s both physical and mental benefits here. So according to researchers, the state of immersion in awe enhances your wellbeing gives you more satisfaction in life it sharpens your brain, and it makes you feel less impatient and more time rich. There’s also additional studies about the impacts to physical health. There were studies where University of Toronto, University of Pittsburgh and University of California, Berkeley, showing that experiencing awe reduces inflammation in the body. So it helps you deal with infection, inflammation and trauma, amongst other things. Also back to what we were talking about last time gratitude. So experiencing awe leads to people being more generous, more pro-social and more willing to volunteer. Maybe it’s as a result again, going back to that frightening, but as a result of people feeling humbled by things that are much larger than themselves.

P: Yeah, so there’s a perspective.

M: Absolutely. It does change your perspective. It makes you feel insignificant in a good way.

P: Yes, it draws your… draws your worrisome nature away from the small things. It’s the small grains of sand that you don’t need to worry about maybe.

M: More than that, I think it makes you realise that you’re one cog in a very large wheel and that’s not a bad thing. You do con[tribute], rather than it being all about you, or your worries and your stresses and how you are going to pay the mortgage and how you know, buy the kids, Christmas presents and all of that other worry day to day worry. It places you in the world as one of many billions of people on and when you think about that way and it’s not just about you, we start looking at how we can help others around us and contribute more to the society that we live in.

P: And that comes back to that generosity word that we talked about in the last podcast is putting yourself in their perspective. Generosity makes you more appreciative, which then makes you focus on more of the positive aspects of what you can achieve as opposed to what you can’t.

M: Yeah, so it’s all interlinked, all of this stuff, right?

P: Definitely.

M: So experiencing awe makes you more generous.

P: Yeah, I like that.

M: According to research.

P: So Marie, what brings you awe?

M: I like to refer to the goose bump test.

[Laughter]

M: Right?! If I look back on my life, there’s a few moments that I have experienced goose bumps, live performance.

P: yet definitely.

M: And I love ‘America’s Got Talent’ –

P: – [Laugh] Reality TV shows!

M: The moment where the underdog gets laughed at by the judges and the crowd and then comes out and kills it.

P: Yeah it’s the Susan Boyle moments –

M: The Susan Boyle moments, they get me everytime.

[Laughter]

P: They do, they tap into that unexpected pleasure because you go ‘Yeah, you go man!’ –

M: And you get goose bumps. But for me the one that really sticks in my mind is a holiday I took back in 2015 to India. It was probably the second week of a three week trip, and we finally got to the Taj Mahal and I remember walking underneath the arch way as you come into the big Taj Mahal area and seeing the Taj Mahal for the first time, through the haze, through the thousands of people, and just feeling the goose bumps of that moment, and it is just the grandest proclamation of love.

Taj Mahal, India (2015)

P: [Laugh]

M: If I can be romantic… that building beats Romeo and Juliet by a mile.

P: [Sharp intake of breath] [Laugh]

M: I got goose bumps, and that was awe to me, and I stood there being jostled by everyone and really took the time to take that moment, and that has stuck with me years later.

P: I’ve got a similar story where I was taking my niece through Italy and we went to Riomaggiore on the Cinque Terre trail. We decided to get there and Alex was 16 and all eager and she said “what are we going to do today Uncle Peter?” and I said we’re going for a walk and she goes where? And I said we’re going to go left. [Laugh] So we walked out of our accommodation and we walked left then we took another left and we ended up at some random sign post in Italian that said Nunnery, and I said ooh let’s follow that. So we’re trudging up this hill and my niece was like Uncle Peter where are we going? I said “we’re going to a nunnery” and she went “right…” and we’re walking up random goat tracks. We ended up going past bushes that were filled with hornets. And Alex was not amused, she was not happy. And then she turned around to me at the halfway point and goes Uncle Peter you do realise I don’t like hills. And I’m like well it sucks to be you right now. Anyway we’re going through these goat tracks and she’s constantly bemoaning, getting upset because we’re walking in this hot weather. And then we got to the nunnery. And God bless her she turned around and said “so where’s the nuns?”

[Laughter]

P: “No, there’s no Nuns here darl[ing], they’re all gone”

We walked around the back of the Nunnery and were on the cliff. We’re looking out over the ocean on and I turned her and said how goods this? And she went “Yeah alright, you win.”

[Laughter]

P: And that was a goose bump moment so that’s the thing of not necessarily planning to have one. We weren’t going to a specific destination, but we found something and it creates those moments where you do. We sat there for 20 minutes, and she did sit there for 20 minutes and just took it in and that creates a certain amount of perspective and brings it all home to you.

M: So you mentioned there you didn’t plan for it, but I think that the good news is you can plan for awe in your life, but it is a very subjective thing. So you know what works for one person won’t work for another necessarily. Do you have any tips for our listeners on how to plan for awe?

P: Aaahh… Well, for me it’s become go on a holiday. Wally got it right all those years ago. So every year now I do plan a holiday somewhere. It doesn’t have to be a big destination or and overseas holiday it just means taking time out. Getting time to have those walks outside, and that’s another good way to find awe as well is spending quality time outside and about. Take yourself out of your known sphere. Go somewhere that you haven’t been before. Walk around or take a boat ride or take a bike ride and stop somewhere. And if you find something that’s inspiring and sit in it for a while, setting those times aside to indulge in inspiration is really important. And I like the fact that you mentioned live performance because obviously being an ex-artist that is one of the big moments for me I’ve had so many moments where I literally gasp going that was amazing!

M: [Laugh]

P: When I’ve watched someone do something incredible or heard someone sing. It’s those are really important and easily accessible ways to get some awe and inspiration. There are free concerts around Sydney at the moment, with the Sydney Festival and one of the ones I’m looking forward to is the Opera in the park. You could go and here world class performers do amazing things and you’re just sitting in the park.

M: I think the key is to find someone that does something that inspires you. And that might be performance or it might also be someone who thinks in a way that inspires you. Ted is hugely popular, and I think it’s because people can sit there and go, Huh? And they have ah huh moment, right?

P: Yeah

M: That I’m actually going to go and take what you said to make change in my life. That’s how inspirational it was.

P: Yeah, and accessibility to that now is so much more.

M: Absolutely. You just need to go online. And speaking of going online there, there is no substitute for getting out all right, getting out into nature and seeing live performance, etcetera. But there are two things you can do if you are short on time or energy, and one is to relive your inspiring moments, so simply reliving them can have a positive impact on your well being. So take out photos of trips you’ve taken the birth of your first child. How many of us have taken videos or photos off our wedding and they sit in a cupboard for the rest of our lives?

P: [Laughter]

M: It is so worth it — you know, as long as you still love your significant other…

P: Well even if you don’t, I mean, it was a happy point in your life.

M: [Laughter] … To take the time to actually put it on the TV and watch it and that can actually bring you a lot of joy, just reliving awe inspiring moments. And then the second thing people can do is to start an awe inspiring playlist or album or journal. So there’s some beautiful pieces of music that for me always just.. [inspire] I like Carmina Burana by Carl Orff. Love that music.

P: Very lovely piece.

M: Absolutely and that would be on my list. You can also just start taking cuttings out of magazines or travel magazines printing stuff from online. Things that bring you awe and just start a journal, and one day that might be your guide to your holiday book.

P: [Laugh] Very true, we’ve all done that.

M: In the meantime, it’s something that can bring you joy and a really great resource that I do want to point you towards is, and on its online, Berkeley has an awe video experience, so we’ll pop that online so that people can find the link. It’s a beautiful video of awe inspiring scenery around the world, really worth checking out.

P: That’s where sometimes the old Google chrome cast can come in really handy as well. If you can find those images that either recall beautiful moments like whenever I see the Great Barrier Reef, I’m instantly transported back to when I lived in North Queensland went out there for the first time and dove amongst the coral. Or placed that you want to go places that you have a desire to visit. Those, those images can be very important to keeping our focus and changing it if we need to.

M: Absolutely.

P: Okay, well I think we’re out of time, we’ve gone on long today.

M: Yep

P: Thanks for joining us. If you want to hear more, please remember to subscribe and like this podcast.

M: Thanks.

Meet besties Marie and Pete

Marie and Pete

Marie Skelton is an Australian writer, speaker, and change and resiliency expert. She started her career in journalism before working in public affairs and then specialising in organisational and culture change for some of the world’s largest tech and financial services companies, both in Australia and the U.S. She also played volleyball for Australia and on scholarship at a D1 university in the U.S. and she captained the NSW Women’s Volleyball team in the Australian Volleyball League.

Following a motorbike accident that nearly took her life, and leg, she began researching change and resiliency to find out how people cope with major life changes and why some people are really good at dealing with whatever life throws at them, while others struggle. She is passionate about mental health and writes about how to cope with today’s Change Storm and maintain mental wellness.  

Marie and Pete

Peter Furness is just plain awesome. He loves unicorns and champagne. Pete is the owner of Max Remedial, and a qualified remedial therapist and has worked all over the world with professional athletes, dancers, sporting organisations and medical professionals. Peter’s practice is influenced by his interest in Eastern philosophy and he works closely with Chinese and Ayurvedic practitioners, approaching the body from the principles of ancient medicine.

Peter has practiced Asstanga Yoga for 20 years and combines these principles with his approach to health.

Peter was also an award-winning contemporary dancer in Australia and in the UK. 

The Importance of Gratitude (E3)

by

Happiness for Cynics podcast – season 1, episode 3

Who knew? Practicing gratitude can actually make you happier. We take a look at some of the latest research into why gratitude makes you happy and how you can bring more gratitude into your life.  

Want more on gratitude? Check out our article on Why and How You Should Practice Gratitude or download our gratitude infographic.

Subscribe so you don’t miss out! We’re working on new episodes as we speak. Check back here, or subscribe to be find out when we launch new episodes.

Transcription

M: You’re listening to the podcast happiness for cynics. I’m Marie Skelton, a writer and change and transformation specialist, and my co-host is Peter Furness. Peter.

P: Hi there. I’m Peter Furness, and I’m a remedial therapist, ex professional dancer and happiness aficionado. Each week we will bring to you the latest news of research in the world of positive psychology, otherwise known as happiness. Now, Marie, you’ve also got a blog on this topic, right?

M: Yes, and you can find me at MarieSkelton.com. And it’s a site about major life changes and transitions and how to cope with them. The site uses a lot of the same research we talk about here on the podcast and has some really practical tips for bringing joy and happiness into your life. You can also find me on Twitter at Marie Skelton. So on to today’s episode, which is all about gratitude.

[Happy intro music]

M: So, Peter, why gratitude?

P: Gratitude make us more in tune to our social groups. Gratitude encourages us to be more happy. It covets more feelings of wanting to engage and be generous and all those lovely feel good fuzzies that you should be getting and if we can focus on gratitude it brings about the other elements that end up making us more happy.

M: For me in particular, I had a pretty bad accident a few years ago, as you know, and I’ve found myself being more grateful for what I do have. Maybe that’s growing up a little bit as well [Laughter], I’m out of my terror teenage years. But being more grateful has allowed me to find a bit more inner peace and is just a far more healthy mental state to be in/

P: it brings your focus in as well. It narrows your focus when you can identify the things that you’re grateful about. You realise how much you have, as opposed to looking at the things that you don’t have. You know, it’s about that, that shift in mentality that makes you go ‘Oh, I’ve got some good stuff going on here.’

M: Absolutely. And let’s be honest, we live in Sydney which, you know, is one of the top 10 most liveable cities in the world. Year after year after year, always better than Melbourne, by the way. [Laughter]

P: I apologise to our Victoria listeners.

M: I don’t [Laugh]

P: I am an ex Melbourne-ite, and I always get a little bridled when someone mentions that, so go Melbourne.

M: You chose Sydney, just saying.

[Laughter]

M: but you know, and we’re both very blessed with the careers that we have and the income that they provide us, our ability to even partake in the careers that we’ve chosen. Then there’s so many things to be grateful for in our lives. I guess the question is, so many other people are in similar situations to us, and yet they’re not feeling grateful and they’re not practicing gratefulness. So maybe we start with what is gratitude.

P: What is gratitude?

M: I think you had an Oxford dictionary quote for us Pete.

P: I do, we’re amazingly in sync here because I’ve been doing some writing and reading on this for myself towards the end of last year. So according to the Oxford Dictionary, gratitude is with the quality of being thankful, readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness. And I guess something that’s worth pointing out is that polite.. gratitude is often mistaken as a sign of politeness. Sorry, for everyone listening at home.

[Laughter]

P: There’s a cat crawling over Marie’s shoulder.

M: I wish you could see [Laugh] we are sitting in my lounge room which is doubling as our sound studio and the cat has decided to sit on my shoulder.

P: She was doing a very good job there remaining poised as a cat perched on her head.

M: I’m grateful for my cat, I’m grateful for my cat..

OK. So gratitude, thank you for that excellent Oxford Dictionary quote there, Peter. But it’s also worth noting that gratitude can be mistaken as being polite, something that parents teach their kids in order to be better respected in society. And we’re not talking about that.

P: No, we’re talking about conscious gratitude. So actually spending time being grateful for the things that you do have and investing in that this is something that ah, a lot of religious doctrines have done and being someone who’s more interested in Buddhism in the eastern forms of religion it’s something that is very much in the practice of religion and that is identifying the things that you can be grateful for no matter how small that creates a sense of thankfulness, which then leads into kindness and compassion and all those other lovely elements that lead to a happiness state.

M: And I’m not religious by any means, but it is also similar to Christian praying.

P: Yes, definitely.

M: So at night you spend time thanking God for what you have and for people

P: and it’s a focus thing and you’re drawing focus to the things and you’re recognising. And this is what some of the research talks about is actively recognising, either by writing it down or saying it out loud. What am I grateful for? What are the good things in my life? Just by making that switch? Sometimes that can create a good generator of happiness is a good word to use?

M: Yeah, I’ll give it to you.

[Laughter]

I’m just not allowed to say begets apparently.

[Laughter]

M: It’s pompous

P: It’s Stephen Fry!

M: OK, he’s got a lovely English accent so he can get away with it.

All right, so let’s maybe talk about some of the benefits and some of the studies and stuff. So, what are the benefits of being grateful?

P: Well, studies show that practicing gratitude leads to being more honest, patient, having more self-control and that then helps you to achieve goals, achieve the things that you’re aiming to get out of life.

M: I think you mentioned this before. One of the other important things is that particularly for perfectionists there is a tendency to concentrate on learning from mistakes and that’s a really noble and valid thing to do. Don’t get me wrong, but sometimes it can make us focus too much on what goes wrong and not enough on what’s going right in our lives.

P: Definitely, there’s some stuff out there from… [Laugh] I can’t remember the guy’s name [Laughter] I’ll have to come back to that one.

M: It doesn’t exist if you can’t reference it.

[Laughter]

P: Yes, it is great to learn from mistakes. It is great to learn what you’ve done wrong, but it is also brilliant to hone your focus on the things that you do right and that is to… Ahh it was Matthew McConaughey. It was Matthew McConaughey’s speech at ah… I think it was the University of Texas [actually University of Houston]. One of the 13 rules he made for a simple life and he talks about are honing your successes. So breaking down your successes and going this is why it worked. Because in the same way that it’s good to learn from the mistakes. If you know what works, you can implement that again the next time.

Matthew McConaughey’s address to graduating students at Houston University

M: Yep, so it’s about paying attention to the good things so that we don’t take them for granted. And in that way it makes us more attuned to the sources of pleasure and good people and things in our lives.

P: Yes, which we will then seek out further and use more in the future.

M: Yep. Okay, so give me the proof.

P: [Laugh] It’s always about proof, this is the science in you.

M: [Laugh] This all sounds really nice. Gratitude makes you rich and smart and beautiful and all the rest of it.

P: It does make you beautiful there is a link that gratitude defies age. I’m going to go to my book here [Laugh].

M: Alright well, while you’re looking through your book.

P: Flipping through my book posthumously ‘Kindness slows ageing.’ There we go.

M: Nice. Okay. So I’m going to actually reference real research here, Not just Peter’s musings in his book. So a study by Emmons and McCullough to publish in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 2003 nearly 20 years ago now showed that participants who kept a Gratitude Journal weekly for 10 weeks or daily for two weeks experienced more gratitude obviously, they also experienced positive moods, optimism about the future and better sleep.

And there’s also study and I’m going to apologise to these wonderful researchers but I’m about to butcher your names. There’s a study by Mϋce Idili, Erdil, Akgϋn and Keskin in 2015 which, from the cultivating gratitude towards the workplace, can help alleviate negative emotions and attitudes at work. So really worth focusing in on this if you’re in HR or if you’re a manager of people. So it found that employees with high levels of gratitude towards work are more likely to excel by going above and beyond in their job tasks. So there’s a real productivity benefit. To cultivating a grateful workplace that will impact your bottom line. That’s stats for me Pete. ROI can’t beat that.

P: [Laugh] We all have a little bit of statistical data. In contribution to that, I’m going to talk about Northeastern University professor David DeSteno, whose comes up a lot in a lot of the research in terms of studies that he’s done. He has proven that not only does gratitude increase kindness, it helps people succeed in their goals. So talking about how gratitude can make you more focused can bring you more into a positive light, which then helps you actually achieve more.

I’ll also talk about U. C Berkeley’s Summer Allen, Ph.D. She writes in ‘The Science of Gratitude’, which is a white paper that she published, that grateful people are happier, more satisfied, less materialistic and have better mental and physical health. And, we’ll talk about that in the context of what we can actually do for gratitude later on.

M: That’s fascinating, isn’t it? There’s so much research coming out now that links mental habits and mental health to physical health.

P: It’s the new what they call the wellness perspective. People are becoming much more conscious about what can they do in their daily life to create lasting change.

M: Yep. Okay, so we’ve got studies, and that’s, that’s just four that we’ve mentioned plus Peter’s scribble, So five.

[Laughter]

M: and look all you have to do is Google gratitude and gratitude studies, gratitude research. There is so much out there that shows that practicing gratefulness has huge repercussions for your life.

P: Definitely, I’m going to say this, although I’m not sure if Marie’s going to let me do it. It’s a compounding interest of influence.

M: [Laughter]

P: Gratitude creates things that have their own energy and it brings about things like kindness and positivity. So it’s a real key to unlocking barriers that we might have that we don’t even know that we’ve got and I’ll reference a personal story here, that when I was a young Arts University student down in Melbourne, the world was so bleak and dark and difficult, dancing my little heart out and putting all my emotion into these dark pieces and it wasn’t until I actually left Australia about 10 years later and I moved to London and I made a conscious decision to stop being so bloody miserable. Life is okay. You know, I was earning a career and so forth in my chosen profession and again coming back to that point, you were saying earlier about the opportunity that we’ve got to pursue careers that we choose and to actually make a living out of them. So I turned my mental focus around and started concentrating more on what I had as opposed to what I didn’t have or what was good as opposed to what was negative about the day and living in London as those of you who have lived in London in the middle of winter, it’s a desperate place to live

M: Yeah, I lived in D. C.

P: It’s hard. Yeah, that lack of sunlight. It’s the constant drizzle. It’s the greyness.

M: It’s the cold! Everything’s cold!

P: It’s hard yakka, so to turn your focus around in that perspective, during that time, I found that to be very empowering and it made me appreciate so much more of what was going on and actually got me more active in my own life and going out there and seeking things and finding things so that when I woke up and didn’t have work, I’d be ‘that’s okay. I’ve got this this, this and this and this to do and I’d be very forthright in going out and going into the city and doing more classes or going and meeting people and seeing what opportunities were out there.

M: So that’s a great Segway into the next question I have for you. How do you practice gratitude? So what did you do to shift your mindset?

P: Well, it was interesting because one of the things that Summer Allen talks about from UC Berkeley is journaling. And for me, this came about in the form of a journal. I managed to get one of my old journals from when I was a student and looked at it at went ‘Oh my God, this is a book of sadness.’ [Laugh]

M: But actually, you were journaling the bad stuff.

P: Yeah, completely.

M: And so when you decided you’re going to shift to your mindset to being more grateful, did you start journaling about that? Or did you just stop the negative journaling?

P: No. I consciously started journaling about positive. So at the end of every entry, I made it commitment to myself that I was going to find one positive thing in the day on that was what I would end on and I found myself doing that generally throughout the entries, there’s no longer was I writing about the negative, the negative washed off. I let it go, whereas it was the positive stuff that I was focusing on.

M: Well, that actually aligns with what the research shows. So the research suggests that translating your thoughts into concrete language can make us more aware of them, and it deepens there emotional impact. So, it also shows you don’t need to journal every day but journaling two or three times per week using that time to reflect, particularly on the smaller, more frequent things. So, someone holding the door open for you or stopping the lift from going when you get into work in the morning.

You know those people who press the buttons?

[Laughter]

M: We can see you!

P: Waiting at the traffic light and continuously hitting that button. Yes I’m sure the computer chip received your information. Pushing it harder won’t make a difference.

M: [Laugh] Yes, anyway, so we ah focus on the good, not the bad. [Laugh look at us focusing on the bad] but people who hold the lift for you or hold a door opened for you, or who offer you some of this snack at lunch or say thank you in an email or those little things they’re worth taking time to notice.

P: Definitely.

M: Writing them down, again only two or three times a week. Is all it actually takes. And then there’s a whole lot of other stuff you can do to take it further. Things like writing an email to a colleague to say thank you or writing a letter to someone. Oh penmanship it’s a lost art.

P: E mail or pen. It doesn’t matter. This is something that Allen also talks about. It’s one of her primary two gratitude interventions, and whilst journaling is one. It’s this identification of people that have helped you to achieve that is the other and writing that down or physically putting that into practise. So saying this person did this for me and acknowledging it. You don’t necessarily have to send the email or the letter, but writing it down helps you to identify it and that again becomes a good feeling vibration that permeates everything else because you start identifying more positive things.

M: Send the bloody letter [Laughter] if you’ve written the letter, send the letter.

P: [Laugh] It comes back to, you know, people sending little gifts. Or you sending something to your client because they’ve been good to you for the year. Having just had Christmas, that’s something that a lot of people may have forgotten. I remember as a kid Mom used to always give the garbage man a six pack. She would, she would wait out there at six o’clock in the morning for these garbage-men to make sure that they got their six pack of beer and she gave one to the Post[-man]. She would give one to the Milk man. It’s those little things that matter.

M: You know what I think that, having lived in the States for eight years, it’s something I noticed over there. Americans have got gratefulness and gratitude down pat. They’ve got Thanksgiving, which is a four day holiday centred around thanking people for what you have and they have a tipping culture, which has a whole raft of other issues that we don’t need to go into. But a culture of saying thanks above and beyond and..

P: identifying it.

M: exactly. So you always send your kids off with a Christmas present for the teachers at the end of the year, we never really did that in Australia at my school, and some kids might have had a different experience. Thanking the garbage-man or the, the people that provides services to you on a regular basis for their time and their commitment it’s such a powerful thing that is really not part of our culture in Australia as much as it was over in the States, and I think that’s what made it stand out to me. But it’s such a beautiful thing that it’s one of those things that is such a selfish thing. Be grateful people because the benefits to you

P: come back

M: absolutely. And the best part about all of this stuff is when your doctor sits you down and says you need to quit smoking. You need to stop drinking. You’ve got to go exercise three times a week, if he says ‘Go be grateful.’ It’s the easiest bloody thing in the world, and it’s cheap as well, it’s pretty much free. If you do it certain ways.

P: You can buy in. [Laughter] Go on Marie, buy in, buy in.

M: I’m buying this one because it’s such a no brainer. It’s simple and easy. It is so easy. You don’t have to journal. You have to write it down. That’s just what the research says really solidifies it for you. But you could just take time every evening before you go to bed to think about the good things that have happened that day and be grateful for them.

P: It’s a wonderful way to get yourself a good night’s sleep as well.

M: Yeah. There you go. All right. So that’s all we had time for today, Peter.

P: Awe, so quick.

M: So if you were listening to us I want to thank you for joining us again today. If you want to hear more, please remember to subscribe. And like this podcast.

P: And there are a range of additional resource is on your site aren’t there Marie.

M: Why, thank you, Peter. Yes, there are. [Laugh] Yeah there are. So there’s a whole lot of articles and links to a lot of the research that we talk about. Again you can visit Marieskelton.com for more articles and research on happiness.

Meet besties Marie and Pete

Marie and Pete

Marie Skelton is an Australian writer, speaker, and change and resiliency expert. She started her career in journalism before working in public affairs and then specialising in organisational and culture change for some of the world’s largest tech and financial services companies, both in Australia and the U.S. She also played volleyball for Australia and on scholarship at a D1 university in the U.S. and she captained the NSW Women’s Volleyball team in the Australian Volleyball League.

Following a motorbike accident that nearly took her life, and leg, she began researching change and resiliency to find out how people cope with major life changes and why some people are really good at dealing with whatever life throws at them, while others struggle. She is passionate about mental health and writes about how to cope with today’s Change Storm and maintain mental wellness.  

Marie and Pete

Peter Furness is just plain awesome. He loves unicorns and champagne. Pete is the owner of Max Remedial, and a qualified remedial therapist and has worked all over the world with professional athletes, dancers, sporting organisations and medical professionals. Peter’s practice is influenced by his interest in Eastern philosophy and he works closely with Chinese and Ayurvedic practitioners, approaching the body from the principles of ancient medicine.

Peter has practiced Asstanga Yoga for 20 years and combines these principles with his approach to health.

Peter was also an award-winning contemporary dancer in Australia and in the UK.