Unapologetically Marie

Writer, podcaster, mental health advocate

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Arts on Prescription (E.96)

by

Happiness for Cynics podcast

This week, Marie and Pete talk about arts on prescription and how it might be part of the solution to your happiness needs.

Show notes

Street Art

During the podcast Pete references a story in which the Mayor of Melbourne, Australia, has contracted street artists to revitalise the streets after such long and stressful lockdowns. These artists are going to be paid up to $20,000 for their art.

Battle of the Somme

During the podcast Pete talks about a picture taken at the Battle of the Somme but incorrectly references it to WWII. The battle was fought between 1st of July and the 18th of November 2016 during WWI. We apologise for this mistake.

Neighbourlytics – https://neighbourlytics.com/ 

Urbantech company equipping the property industry, governments and consultancies with lifestyle data on neighbourhoods. 

Transcript

[Happy intro music -background] 

M: Welcome to happiness for cynics and thanks for joining us as we explore all the things I wish I’d known earlier in life but didn’t. 

P: This podcast is about how to live the good life. Whether we’re talking about a new study or the latest news or eastern philosophy, our show is all about discovering what makes people happy. 

M: So, if you’re like me and you want more out of life, listen in and more importantly, buy in because I guarantee if you do, the science of happiness can change your life. 

P: Plus, sometimes I think we’re kind of funny. 

[Intro music fadeout] 

M: Let’s go.

P: Hi!

M: We’re here.

P: We’re queer.

P: We are queer, aren’t we?

M: Yep.

P: Laugh.

M: We are queer ally, at least.

P: Laugh. Such an ally. You’re more than an ally.

M: In the traditional sense of the word, very queer.

P & M: Laugh.

M: My mom uses queer in a very weird way, laugh! “They’re all queer!”

P: I’m like “Ok Mum.” Laugh.

M: A lot of these words in the LGBTQI++ community had meaning before, like gay just meant happy.

P: Mmm. Well, language in itself evolves and changes and shifts, and I find myself going, “Oh, what does that mean now?” I’m not up on the latest language and correctness and all that sort of stuff.

M: I saw a fabulous screenshot of a conversation where someone texts, what’s for dinner? And the person used emojis to put an eggplant and some cheese on there and the guy was like –

P: Laugh!

M: – dick cheese???

P: Exuberant laughter.

M: It was eggplant parmigiana, laugh.

P: Ah. That is not where I went with that!

M & P: Laugh!

M: No.

P: Laugh, anyway. Let’s, let’s elevate out of the gutter for a little bit shall we.

M: Let’s move on.

P: Still laughing.

So, this week, we’re doing a little bit of a reflection, aren’t we? We’re looking back.

M: What?

P: Oh, we’re revisiting some things that we’ve actually got going across before. I came across this article this week from the conversation which I flicked to you –

M: Mmm hmm.

P: – and we both have a little read.

And this is a bit of a testament to the podcast itself that I’m sort of now aware of things much more in the media when I read articles and studies and I’m like, ‘Oh, I know what that means,’ And ‘that’s because of this, this, this.’

M: Mmm hmm.

P: Because of the investigations that we’ve gone through here on the podcast as we approach our 100th episode.

M: Oh!

P: Ba ba dum!

M: Which is very exciting.

P: Very exciting. But this article was talking about the fact that happiness is becoming more expensive and out of reach for many Australians, and I think this also applies to American listeners.

M: Oh, ah no. Not more expensive.

P: Mmm?

M: So, as we’ve discussed before with Maslow’s hierarchy, there are certain things you need to just… like your basics, your foundations, that you need to have.

P: Mmm hmm.

M: Security, shelter, food, et cetera.

P: Ok.

M: And from there you can be happy once you’ve got those basic needs met.

P: Yes.

M: So, the base level of income that you need to have those basic needs met has gone up.

P: Okay, yes.

M: And that would make sense because there’s inflation.

P: Yeah, it’s gone up… They’re mapping it in Australia, and it has gone up from, let me get my facts straight here –

M: – 43 to 74 thousand (AU$).

P: Thank you very much, Marie.

M: And we’ve discussed this before. We might not have actually spoken about $74,000 in Australia, I know we’ve used US metrics in the past.

P: Mmm.

M: But a really good reminder, as you were saying that if you want to be free from worry and stress –

P: Mmm hmm.

M: – about those things, like how to feed your family and put petrol and car etcetera and have your basics covered, then $74,000 is the income you need to aim for, strive for.

P: Mmm. Sadly, in Australia’s case, the amount of people that actually have access to that 74K income is dropping. So, the number of Australians on the income below that, what we call the change point, which is the $74,000 has increased from 60% to 74%.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: And I think that’s the point that the article is making is that more people are now falling below that change point income, and that’s going to prove a problem in the future if this trend continues. And what I was reflecting on when reading this article was that I was the person that if you’d asked me two years ago, does money buy happiness? I would have given you a resounding no, and said, ‘No, definitely not!’

M: It doesn’t, it’s not what this says.

P: It doesn’t but it makes it a damn sight easier to have access to it when you have a certain income, or you have the ability to –

M: I think the lesson here is that money enables you to be free from things that detract from happiness, and then after you get to that $74,000 a year income level. What you do with your money can contribute to happiness, absolutely, and we’re about to get into the real point of this episode here and what we really wanted to talk about. But again, we saw this news. Both of us read it. And we’re like, did you see this?

P: Laugh! We talked about this a year ago.

M: And again, once you’ve got your basic needs met once you’ve met that $74,000 income in Australia, that’s what it costs to live free from financial stress.

P: Yeah.

M: And to live free from other stresses and worries that are what we’ve called negative affect.

P: Yeah.

M: So once you clear that benchmark, then what you do after that is within your control.

P: It’s very true, and the authors who are Richard Morris and Nick Glozier, they do mention that in the article where they say, “Income by itself doesn’t explain a large proportion of variance in happiness.”

M: Mmm hmm.

P: So, you’re absolutely right there. But it still made me sort of prick my ears up and think, ‘Yes, so politics and economics and all those big, big pebbles do have an influence on people’s happiness levels, there is a link there.

M: Yeah.

P: And that’s the, that’s the take home message that drew, that I drew from this article for me was that you think it doesn’t matter, but it actually does and so it’s really important that those of us who are above that 74K understand that maybe and realise that we are in a beneficial position. But to canvass.

M: To be grateful for.

P: Yes, absolutely. But there’s a social responsibility as well to canvas, to advocate for things like basic minimum wages and things like that. And be really aware that these things matter to the bulk of the population and as a result your society in which you live, and you participate.

M: It really comes down to what do you value in society? I’d love to live in a world where everyone has a basic level of income that enables them not to have to worry about how to put food on the table or get to work or clothes on their kid’s backs, etcetera.

P: Yes, exactly.

M: And where we can all, and I know that sounds really idealistic and I am an optimist.

P: Laugh!

M: I will say. But some countries are playing around with these ideas, and UBI – Universal Basic Income- is a fascinating topic. Imagine if every person in your society could have a $74,000 income and then you get to decide what you want to do with your time every day or week.

P: Yeah, that’s a big change.

M: Yeah, Definitely. So anyway, what we were going to talk about today and what I’m excited to explore a little bit because we haven’t spent much time on this topic is something called Arts on Prescription.

P: Mmm.

M: And it comes from an article that we read in The Canberra Times, Canberra Times Magazine, about a gentleman called Patrick McIntyre, who is the CEO of the National Film and Sound Archive. And his thinking about the impact of ballet and film and dance and opera and all of the arts and how that can impact people’s happiness.

P: Mmm.

M: And so, we started out talking about needing the 74,000 just to get your house in order.

P: Yep.

M: So, if you have 75[K] what do you do with that extra thousand is really what we’re talking about here.

P: Ha ha, yep.

M: And we know that buying houses and cars and good clothes and nice shoes and all of that will not bring you happiness.

P: Yes.

M: We also know that doing things like practising gratitude, spending time with friends and family, you know, there are many, many things that you can do that are free that will bring in happiness.

P: Yeah.

M: But if you do have extra money on top of that 74[K] another great way to spend that money to bring yourself happiness is to spend it on experience.

P: Which we talked about before. And that’s such a valuable, valuable investment.

M: Absolutely. Buying stuff won’t help you to build your happiness, but experiences will.

P: The hedonistic treadmill!

M: Absolutely. And so, what Patrick McIntyre is arguing for is for all of us to go prescribe ourselves some art.

P: Laugh! That’s on prescription.

M: Yes.

P: We’ve touched on this before and one of our other episodes about cityscapes, and we talked about the programme that is social prescription in the UK.

M: Yes.

P: That the UK health system are prescribing for mental health and for advancing better mental health in the community. Instead of prescribing people for doctors, they’re sending them into community centres. They’re targeting the organisations that can help bring about a sense of community and get people out there socialising, which we know is one of the pillars of happiness is keeping social connections. Laugh, ergo Marie Skelton.

M & P: Laugh.

P: Writer extraordinaire and happiness expert.

M: We talk about health and wellbeing as one of the other pillars in there.

P: Mmm.

M: And this is really one of those intangible but fabulous ways to get yourself engaging with your surroundings in a mindful way.

P: Mmm yes.

M: And learning and growing that growth mindset. And so, Patrick is probably a bit extreme. He may have a bias here.

P: Laugh. He’s worked in the Arts for 20 years.

M: He says, “Culture is everything. Once we’re fed and sheltered, everything beyond that is culture.”

P: Mmm, yes. That’s a big claim.

M: Mmm hmm. Now Maslow didn’t agree, there are a whole lot of other things in there, like self-actualisation and all the things that we talk about.

P: Yep, yep.

M: But I think there’s something to this, though.

P: I agree. Yeah, it’s a lovely concept.

M: And I know we had a friend who, during lockdown on his daily exercise walks, was spending time going through Newtown and the Inner West area and finding street art and posting it.

P: Yeah, and so much.

M: Yeah, there’s so much, it’s kind of like Chile, they have Valparaiso, which is famous and well known for its street art.

M: We’re kind of becoming like that here in Newtown. It’s fun and I like it.

P: Yeah. Well, the Mayor of Melbourne recently was on ABC News, which is our local broadcaster here in Australia. Melbourne City Council has just thrown, I’m gonna get my figures wrong here, so do forgive me. I think it’s $11,000 at a selection of 30 street artists to take to the alleys in Melbourne to revitalise Melbourne as they come out of lockdown.

M: $11,000? Each? It had to be each.

P: I’m not sure about the figures, don’t quote me on that.

M: Otherwise, that’s really piss-poor.

P: Yeah, I’m not sure about the figures. But she was, she was saying that, you know, we are the street art capital of Australia.

M: Oh! Here we go, laugh.

P: Oohh! It’s on! The [gauntlet] has been thrown.

M: Sydney, accepts your challenge, Melbourne.

P: Laugh! But I think it’s, I think it’s again it buys into so many different cities that we’ve seen, and we’ve mentioned before, like Vancouver and Berlin, that pay their artists to get out there and take over the streetscape.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: And create places where people do gather, socialist, congregate and use those spaces.

M: And experience the art.

P: Yes, definitely.

M: Yeah. And so, our friend spent a lot of time exploring his neighbourhood, and it became almost a little game to see what else you could find, what else you could post and share.

P: Yeah.

M: So, there was the social aspect of showing friends, you know, what he was discovering every day and discovering new things and taking photos, and they’ll pop up on his Facebook.

P: Yeah.

M: Next year again.

P: Good use of social media.

M: Yep, and he’ll be able to revisit that and the experience of exploring his neighbourhood to find art.

P: Mmm.

M: Having said that, there are also so many museums in nearly every large city around the world. And I guarantee you, the longer you’ve been in a city, the less familiar you are with its museums.

P: Yeah, I’ll give you that. I’ve never really visited museums in the city that I’ve lived in.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: I’ve always done it when I travel, usually because it’s a time thing.

M: Yep.

P: I’ve got the time to wander into a museum. But I can relate a personal story here. I think it was the second time that I went to London, and I was on my own and it was freezing. It was so cold, and I was walking up towards Shaftesbury Avenue and it started to really rain, and I didn’t have a brolly [umbrella]. I was like ‘What am I going to do?’

M: Laugh.

P: And I ducked into a door that was open and it happened to be the National Portrait Gallery.

M: Aww.

P: And it was cold, and I was like in there, and I was shaking myself down and this person said, ‘Would you like a headset?’ And I was like, ‘Excuse me?’

M: Laugh.

P: ‘Are you coming in?’ I went, ‘Where am I?’

M & P: Laugh.

P: A long story short. I bought a headset.

M: Short story?

P: Short, short story. I got a headset, and I did this wonderful tour through the National Portrait Gallery. I was there for an hour and a half, and that was my first real museum experience. And I loved it and it hooked me. And I was so intrigued. And it was because I had the headphones, and I got the stories behind the paintings and behind the sculptures.

M: Yep. Well speaking of stories and speaking of the social connection and social cohesion, so many of these museums and art, so dance, theatre; They’re essentially storytelling.

P: Yes.

M: They’re telling the culture, telling the story of our culture. So, there is so much more to experiencing your own culture through painting or through dance, or that can bring to your life.

P: Yeah.

M: And we really, if we can afford it. And oftentimes there are many free museums out there as well. We really should be looking to lock in two trips next year, kind of getting to the end of this year, it’s time to be setting some goals, putting in some activities into your resilience planner. Thanks, Pete.

P: Laugh.

M: Your 2022 calendar. So, as you’re looking at, what trips can you take through the year, have a look at what free museums or performances are out there. Or, you know, if you’ve got a little bit of money aside that you can put towards it. These are great ways to plan for something. And we’ve spoken about the importance of planning for things and looking forward for things and hope.

P: Oh yes.

M: But also, they can really bring a lot of happiness.

P: Totally. You can even go even more local than that, like I was walking past my local church. Now this church is in Australia it’s old, it’s like 150 years old.

M: It’s ANCIENT!

P: Our European listeners are probably like, ‘what?!’ Laugh. But it’s this really lovely stone church and its opposite my greengrocer and I walk past it every week, and this week I walked past it and went, ‘Oh yes, live music is coming back.’ Chamber orchestras, quartets, performing in churches. It makes such sense because they’re brilliant sound acoustic areas.

But it’s that combining of culture, as you say, I mean, this is a local peace, and often you will find little local performances that are free and lunchtime concerts and so forth. And they’re a brilliant way to tap into that culture. If maybe you are a little bit reticent about buying a subscription to the Sydney Symphony or the theatre Company or the dance company.

M: There’s too many different ones to buy subscriptions to every single one of them.

P: Laugh. That’s where your friends are really important because they can get the subscription and take you along as a handbag.

M: Okay, great. I’ll lock you in for that.

P: Aahh! I’m a poor student!

M: Laugh.

P: Oh, I get student rates now. Yay!

M: Laugh!

P: I can get student price, I didn’t think of that.

M & P: Laughter!

M: I love it, I’m in.

P: Laugh.

M: So, I can’t remember before, I just wasn’t listening to you Pete, sorry.

P: Oh, no. All good.

M: Whether you mentioned any of the stats?

P: Laugh! I’ll just babble over here in the corner, laugh. I’m here for light amusement.

M & P: Laughter!

M: So, you did mention the Arts on Prescription programme in the UK, which we have mentioned before, but for those of you who are interested in the stats here, that programme was designed to address mental health issues.

So, people with depression, anxiety and a raft of other mental health conditions they were prescribed arts, so trips to museums and Theatre etcetera. And through that programme they saw a

  • 37% drop in GP visits.

P: Huge.

M: Which is General Practitioner or just your local doctor for people outside of Australia and a

  • 39% reduction in hospital admissions.

P: Big numbers.

M: Absolutely.

P: Really effective, and I know that the Australian government is looking at rolling out a similar program here in Australia on the basis of the success that it’s had in the UK.

M: Yeah, and the other thing is just the GDP [Gross Domestic Product] that the arts industry brings to any local economy, and they’ve really had it tough in the past 18 months.

P: They have. Yep, yep.

M: So, if we can start reinvesting in local theatre companies and performances over Christmas, there’s going to be a lot coming up over our summer months in Australia. But just a lot generally opening up around the world, if we can start reinvesting in that the benefits for society are huge.

P: Yeah. I was watching a show this morning that was talking about World War I and it struck me how amazing it was that we’ve got these images of the Battle of the Somme [1916] and things like this. There were photographers there who were there to document that kind of history and that’s all we’ve got.

And the presenters were trying to recall memories from soldiers, and they had all the letters that the soldiers had written. And these have become historical artefacts and that that’s culture.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: That’s artistic expression.

M: That’s our story.

P: Yeah, and they do last. And those letters are now being used to relay how personally it felt for that soldier being in the trench. And they weren’t just from Australians. They had some of the German ones as well. Giving a perspective of the battle, from their perspective of the bringers of death they were fighting in the, in the forests. It was really gripping stuff and quite emotional. But it’s really valuable. So, I think that investment in writing and writers and so forth supporting our authors, supporting our playwrights so important as a record.

M: And our photojournalists.

P: Yeah, definitely.

M: And everyone today can be a photojournalist.

P: Very true, very true.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: And you know that’s the positive use of social media is documenting that, even if it’s only for your own personal reflection.

M: Your reflection, your gratitude. So, again we mentioned before looking back on positive moments can be really valuable.

P: Yeah.

M: Yeah.

P: So, one more data, before we leave which I really liked about this, that the direct social engagement in Melbourne and Sydney as a result of arts programs, and this was from a social data analyst called Neighbourlytics. I like that word.

So, they said that in Melbourne the engagement increased by 42% and by a massive 100% in Sydney. People posting photos of their own art when they couldn’t take selfies and they couldn’t go to galleries and all that sort of stuff that’s amazing. 100% in Sydney!

M: And that was engagement during lockdown. So how did we move our, when we weren’t able to go physically into a building? How do we move our consumption of art online and engage with everything online? And there are some fabulous virtual tours of big global museums.

P: Yes.

M: Well, maybe not all global. But big museums that you can go on as well. So, you don’t need to be in London, to –

P: No, to enjoy.

M: – see the masterpieces.

P: Mmm, and be moved by them.

M: Yeah.

P: It’s a great advert for the people who don’t think that they partake in culture.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: Some people may need to rethink that.

M: The other thing that we talked about a while ago when we were creating our happiness… boxes. I can’t think of the word we used. Anyway, it was curating, curating an experience based on an emotion and pulling together different forms of art.

P: Oh yeah.

M: A movie or…

P: Yep.

M: So, if you are curating joy for your friends. You might pick a movie and a song and a saying and some art and bring everyone over to experience that.

P: Curate you own happiness gallery.

M: I don’t remember, who knows.

P: Laugh.

M: In one ear and out the other with me.

P: Still laughing. On that note, laugh.

M: I tell everyone what they should do, and then don’t do it myself.

P & M: Laugh.

M: Move on.

P: Bright light.

M: Pretty much, laugh. I do, do some.

P & M: Laugh.

M: All right. Well, we are done for today. So, I have a fabulous week and we will see you next week.

P: Have a cultural week.

M: A cultural week. Enjoy your cultural week. Please do write in, we love to hear from all our listeners. It just brightens our day and makes us happy.

P: It does, it makes a huge difference.

M: And every now and then we might do a call out as well.

P: Laugh.

M: So, thank you to everyone who writes to us and we’ll see you in a week.

P: Have a happy week.

[Happy exit music – background] 

M: Thanks for joining us today if you want to hear more, please remember to subscribe and like this podcast and remember you can find us at www.marieskelton.com, where you can also send in questions or propose a topic. 

P: And if you like our little show, we would absolutely love for you to leave a comment or rating to help us out. 

M: Until next time. 

M & P: Choose happiness. 

[Exit music fadeout] 

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Does Volunteering Make Us Happier? (E95)

by

Happiness for Cynics podcast

International Volunteer Day, 5 Dec, is a great opportunity to remind you that volunteering can have a huge impact on your happiness levels! 

Show notes

4 Ways Volunteering Makes Us Happier 

1. It connects you with other people 

2. It’s great for your mental health 

3. It’s great for your physical health  

4. It can help your career  

Transcript

[Happy intro music -background]  

M: Welcome to happiness for cynics and thanks for joining us as we explore all the things I wish I’d known earlier in life but didn’t. 

P: This podcast is about how to live the good life. Whether we’re talking about a new study or the latest news or eastern philosophy, our show is all about discovering what makes people happy. 

M: So, if you’re like me and you want more out of life, listen in and more importantly, buy in because I guarantee if you do, the science of happiness can change your life.   

P: Plus, sometimes I think we’re kind of funny.

[Intro music fadeout]  

P: …Oh, I’m red-lining. Hello, viewers. …Viewers! Listeners, laugh. I have not had a glass of Rose.

M: I’m not going to say anything. Keep going, Pete.

P: Laugh.

M: Welcome to the show everyone. 😊

P: Hi! Hi hi hi.

M: This is Marie and Pete –

P: Laugh!

M: – and Peanut butter and Jelly, the two cats.

P: Aww, we’ve referenced them, yay. Marie was all worried that her cats were making too much noise. I’m like, ‘It’s fine. Go with it! Run with it, reference it, –

M: Laugh.

P: – it’ll be amusing!’

M: It’s a family show, and I did find out this week that Biden has pardoned the usual turkeys in honour of Thanksgiving, and their names were Peanut butter and Jelly.

P: Laugh! Pardoned them?

M: Yes, so they don’t get killed for Thanksgiving. They go back and live free and happy lives on the farm.

P: He chooses two turkeys?

M: I think it’s normally one.

P: Oh.

M: I don’t know.

P: He’s being generous this year.

M: I don’t know enough; I should have read into this. I really need to research more about the things that I randomly mention on this show.

P: Laugh! Oh god. If we did that, we’d be here forever!

M: Laugh.

P: And I’d never shut up.

M: It would be a very stilted conversation, wouldn’t it?  

P: Laugh, it wouldn’t be good. And I’d be called on all my crap, laugh!

M: Yes, laugh.

P: Yeah so, I’ve been going since eight o’clock this morning.

M: My brain feels fried.

P: Ahh.

M: I’ve put a lot of my brain towards thinking today.

P: Oh.

M: Having said that, we did all of our prep for today’s show before today.

P: Laugh.

M: So, you’ll get solid research.

P: Solid research, very statistical data, very scientific data –

M: Very scientific.

P: – with no vagal tone being mentioned.

M: Laugh, very scientific. We’re moving on from that.

P: Laugh. So, what are we talking about this week, Marie?

M: Well, coming up on the 5th of December is International Volunteer Day.

P: Yay! Everybody go out and do something fun!

M: And that’s the point. Volunteering for a lot of people is something that you do because you have to, because ‘Mum said so.’

P: Oh! It’s so much more than that. And we’ve talked about this before in one of our very early episodes, way back when we were young, and green, and keen, and

M: bright eyed and bushy tailed?

P: Oh, I know! I was like a little squirrel. Squirreling, squirreling up the tree!

M: Mush… mush in our heads right now people.

P: Pootle. I meant to say pootle. Pootle is a good word.

M: …So, I say ‘absolutely’ too much, and you say ‘clock’.

P: I’m not using the C word anymore. Snigger.

M: Well, I don’t agree with the C word.

P: Laugh!

M: It’s quite offensive and sexist.

P: Laugh. So, it’s the ‘P’ word now, pootle-ing.

M: My new favourite verb. Thank you, Pete, for bringing that to our attention.

P: Laugh.

M: We will be doing far more pootle-ing from here on out.

P: Lots of pootle-ing. Pootle-ing and pootle-ing on Volunteering Day.

M: So, I have no idea what we’re talking about. But when we were wide eyed and bushy tailed, we did discuss volunteering. We’re gonna circle back on it because it’s that time of year and it is such an important catch all.

P: Mmm.

M: Really, for mental health and happiness.

P: And it’s also one of those things that you don’t realise how beneficial it is until you actually do it.

M: It’s the blueberry of happiness.

P: Oh! The blueberry of happiness!

M: It’s the superfood.

P: Wow! Laugh. Can I be broccoli?

M: Broccoli is not a superfood.

P: [Gasp] Oh! How dare you.

M: Because no one likes broccoli.

P: I like broccoli.

M: They like blueberries.

P: I’m going to be on the fence on that one.

M: Ok.

P: Give me a steamed broccoli and I’m good.

M: Right, well volunteering is the broccoli blueberry of food.

P: Laugh!

M: So good for you? And it ticks so many boxes.

P: It does.

M: So today we’re going to talk about four ways of volunteering that make us happier.

P: Oh! What’s number one?

M: Numero uno.

P: Tell me? Tell me? Tell me? Tell me?

M: It connects you with other people.

P: Ah! Good old, social pillar.

M: Yes.

P: What are the three pillars that we stand on? One of them is social connection people.

M: Social connection, meaning and purpose, which volunteering can also give you. And the third is health and happiness, which… [drumroll] guess what we’ll be talking about soon.

P & M: Laugh!

M: But back to social connection.

P: Social connection, because why? Un-social people die!

M & P: Laugh!

M: So, let’s get into the studies because there’s some really cool studies on volunteering.

P: Well, you’ve got quite a number on this one.

M: I have.

P: I’m quite impressed on your study.

M: My research.

P: Yeah.

M: So, let’s go straight to someone who is bound to be credible with the cynics… An economist.

P: Laugh.

M: So, economists Steven Meier and Alois Stutzer released a study way back in 2004 which concluded that

“Volunteering constitutes one of the most important pro-social activities and helping others is the way to higher individual wellbeing.”

P: I like that, higher individual well-being.

M: They found robust evidence, –

P: Ooh!

M: – not just evidence but robust evidence, that volunteers are more satisfied with their life than non-volunteers. 

P: I’ve got an example of this.

M: Enlighten me.

P: The Country Women’s Association.

M: Oh, it is. It is such a… like It’s a tribe. It’s crew. It’s a gang.

P: Laugh!

M: It’s scary.

P: Laugh! So, for our overseas listeners, the CWA is, for those of you in the UK, it’s the Women’s Institute.

M: Oh.

P: I’m not sure of the American Association that is the equivalent of the CWA. It stands for Country Women’s Association.

M: And they have them down south.

P: In America?

M: It is the pearl wearing, cardigan wearing country ladies’ societies. They do fundraising, and they look after the community.

P: Yes.

M: They come together and do bake sales when someone’s sick or you know they’ll, they’ll drop off a lasagne if someone’s in hospital or etcetera.

P: Laugh, yes.

M: They’ll knit booties for the new baby on the block or whatever it is.

P: Mmm.

M: So, they’re the life blood of these communities.

P: Absolutely. I mean, I come from rural Australia and my mum should have been the president of our CWA because CWA, it’s a really good organisation where these women come together, and they literally choose a charity. It’s like, ‘Who can we help this week? Who is in need of assistance?’ And it’s this lovely organisation where they can be quite large.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: I mean in the hundreds.

M: Yeah.

P: To form a community organisation and their powerful. These women hold power, I mean they can influence elections.

M: Mmm.

P: Simply by swapping a lamington recipe.

M & P: Laugh.

P: So, they had this way of being able to bring people together, or organise connections, possibly of their husbands, who one might be a farmer, the other one might be a politician. Bringing those people together because they bring them into the house, or they bring them into the home.

M: They host.

P: Exactly.

M: They’re the social lubrication.

P: Oh! Oh, I just got moist. Laughter!

M: Not that kind of lubrication, Peter!

P: Laugh, sorry.

M: My mum was with an organisation called Quota, which does something very similar.

P: Oh, yeah, yeah.

M: And for a very long time, she used to go down to the local club, the Southern Cross Club in Woden in Canberra, and she used to have conversations with migrants.

P: Ah, perfect.

M: So, they’d come in, have a cup of tea.

P: Yep.

M: It was free tea and coffee down at the local club. Sit down, and for an hour or two they just talk about everything and anything in English.

P: So brilliant!

M: So that they could practise their speaking skills and meet people.

P: Yeah.

M: And get out of the house and form other friendships.

P: Yep.

M: Such a simple, simple thing. And it led my mum to making friendships with people as well that she wouldn’t have otherwise met.

P: Mmm, yep.

M: That was really poor grammar or whatever I said just then.

P: Laugh.

M: But you get my point.

P: Absolutely. Like you see Mammut down at the local supermarket and you’re like, ‘Oh hi Mammut, remember me I’m Beryl’, that connection is really important.

M: Mmm, absolutely.

P: And if someone is struggling, it’s like I know this person. I can help. I have a connection with them already. It’s something good about integration, I fully support the CWA, they are a burgeoning society.

M: So, back to volunteering.

P: Sorry.

M: It does connect you with other people.

P: Yes.

M: And so, whether you’re in an organisation like CWA or Quota, or whether you volunteer at the RSPCA and pets are more your style, not people.

P: Yeah, exactly. Laugh, socially awkward.

M: There is still also something that gets you out of the house and speaking to other people.

P: Precisely.

M: And there’s so much value in that.

P: Absolutely.

M: All right. Number two.

P: Tell me?

M: It is great for your mental health.

P: Another pillar of our…

M: Mmm hmm. Half of pillar three.

P: Well, we can’t call it a house, ‘cause that need four pillars, four supports? Trapezoidal?

M: Well now they’ve got, like, buses that are houses.

P: On three legs?

M: What about tents and Tepees? That could be threes.

P: Yeah, that could be threes. The yurt.

M: And we digress again.

P & M: Laugh!

M: We will revert back to yurts another time.

P: Laugh!

M: So mental health.

P: Still laughing!

M: So, our brains are wired for social connection and whenever we help others, our brains release the pleasure hormones.

P: Whoo! Where’s some Barry White.

M & P: Laugh!

P: Let’s get it on!

M: So, I love this study that was done in 2018 by Sonja Lyubomirsky and her colleagues.

P: Oh! We love Sonja.

M: I’m sorry, Sonja’s colleagues, but I know Sonja’s name.

P: Laugh! We’ve practised Sonja’s name a few times.

M: So, they published in the American Psychological Association Journal about a study they did on workers in a Spanish company, and they assigned them different roles. Some of them had to give out acts of kindness.

P: I remember this one, yeah.

M: Yep, And the results show that practising everyday pro-sociality is what they call it. So being nice and kind is both emotionally reinforcing and contagious, and it inspires kindness in others.

P: Absolutely.

M: But not only that, they found that not only the people receiving it get a benefit, but the people giving get a benefit too.

P: They get more of a benefit apparently.

M: Absolutely. So that’s the first thing. So, volunteering comes back to you two fold.

P: Yep.

M: And then there was another study in the UK that found that volunteering leads to a positive change in mental well-being, so people who volunteer become happier over time. And then a Harvard study showed that volunteering at least once a week yields improvements to well-being equivalent to your annual salary doubling.

P: Now that speaking to the money man.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: Who doesn’t want more money? Laugh.

M: Could you imagine how happy you’d be if they doubled your income tomorrow?

P: Absolutely, you’d be like, ‘Oh, my goodness, that’s amazing. What can I do?’

M: But we now know that you would adjust to that level and expect more the next year.

P: Laugh!

M: But volunteering is an increase to your happiness levels that’s maintained over time. This is what we talk about when we talk about the difference between getting a pay rise, getting a bigger car being on that hedonic treadmill.

P: Yeah, laugh.

M: Versus, doing the things that day in, day out they contribute to higher sustained levels of happiness.

P: Yep.

M: So volunteering is in that second bucket.

P: And the sustainability of volunteering is actually larger than giving someone $20 or something. Just donating. Like actually, volunteering has a longer effect from the studies that we’ve done previously. That effect of happiness is much more longer lasting.

M: Yep, absolutely. Particularly if you do something like this, Harvard study said.

P: Yep.

M: Once a week, go volunteer for Little League training or coach at your local club or mentor a disadvantaged youth for become a Big Brother.

P: Mmm, yes.

M: There are so many different organisations out there that are doing amazing work and a lot of the times they will help to train you up as well.

P: Yes.

M: And give you real skills.

P: Which leads to, oh I jumped in there! I pre-empted, laugh.

M: You could see where I was going.

P: Laugh!

M: It’s like we’ve done this before, Pete.

P: No, never. Laugh. [Whisper] We haven’t rehearsed a thing.

M: So, number three; Can help your career.

P: Yes, I can fully support this one. I had years of volunteering at my local volleyball club, which is where I met a rather fabulous woman sitting to my right. Laugh.

M: I thought you were gonna say where you met Wally.

P: Laugh. Oh Wally! Good old Wally. Wally the big, muscly, German.

M: Laugh.

P: He was a very impressive man when I first met him, I was like ‘Oh, my God. Who are you?’ Umm… Hi, Wal if you’re listening.

M: Giggle.

P: But, it really does have a huge impact on your work. I volunteered for the volleyball club and all of a sudden, I was writing spreadsheets and I was arranging events and I’ve never done any of this before.

M: Oh, you took it all in stride.

P: And then totally jumped in. And then all of a sudden, that boiled over into my career and I started arranging schedules and spreadsheets and calculations and so forth for my business, and it wasn’t even a conscious decision. It just happened because I knew how to do it. That skill set is still serving me today on so many different levels of being able to arrange my study schedule for university. I’m waiting for the Physio Socks Society to actually grab me.

M: Laugh.

P: I’m like, ‘No, I don’t know anything. I can’t do anything to help. You’re not going to pick me up.’

M: Laugh.

P: And if any of my physio students are listening to this go away.

M & P: Laugh.

P: I don’t have time. Laugh. But it is. It’s so beneficial in terms of developing your skill set.

M: And a lot of organisations will also put serious energy into training volunteers. So, I know organisations like Lifeline that do over the phone counselling will put many, many hours’ worth of training and effort into up-skilling their volunteers.

P: Yeah, mmm.

M: And a lot of those volunteers stay with them for decades.

P: Yeah, and it leads to a lot of other opportunities within organisations as well.

M: Yep.

P: I’ve got someone in mind that I know that wants to get into support counselling and so forth and that’s…

M: A perfect way.

P: A perfect avenue, yeah.

M: So, it’s not only perfectly to gain skills, it’s also a perfect way to test out a potential career switch as well.

P: Yeah, yeah. Totally.

M: It’s like an unpaid internship.

P: Mmm.

M: Not only do you gain new skills or the skills that you might need in a new role if you’re considering that, but you also get to network with people in your industry and it might be your future boss or put you in touch with your future boss.

P: Yep, yep. Yeah, I fully support that one it’s such, uh, if your feelings stayed and board in your job, volunteer and be open to those of your opportunities. That’s the other aspect of that equation, making sure that you will remain open. I digress.

M: It also. No, you don’t digress that was right on topic.

P: Oh, yay. Good!

M: I’ll finish this one out. So, it’s also back to foundation number two. It’s also a huge source of meaning and purpose and life satisfaction.

P: Mmm.

M: And a lot of us were promised these amazing lives and were told to chase our dreams. Or we’re just simply told to go for the career and the degree that would give you the most –

P: The recipe for a good life?

M: – give you the most money.

P: Yep.

M: You know. Go be a lawyer or an accountant or an actuary.

P: Stability, yep.

M: And then you’re bored out of your mind in your job. But you’ve got a mortgage and a family, and it’s a good income. And so, a lot of the ways that we can bring that, that passion for life back again is via these other commitments that aren’t work.

P: Mmm, yes.

M: Any attempts to bring you closer to a job you’re passionate about are well worth the effort. Or even if it’s just Saturday afternoons and you’re finding your passion there, that can really lift your wellbeing overall.

P: Mmm, mmm.

M: And lastly, in this category, the research shows that volunteers have higher incomes. So, according to Professor Stijn Baert,

“This finding corroborates with previous research showing that volunteering activities on ones CV yield higher employment opportunities, especially for non-natives.”

P: Ahh.

M: So, if you’re a migrant, go in and volunteer straight away.

P: That’s interesting.

M: Start building that CV out and show that you’re contributing to community. You’re more likely to get jobs out of it, and you’re more likely to get higher pay out of it.

P: Mmm.

M: And all right, we’ll move to the last one, which is the second half of the third pillar. So, back to healthy mind and body. We’ve jumped around a bit.

P: Laugh.

M: It’s great for your physical health.

P: Yes.

M: So, let’s.

P: Laugh. Well, it sparks off a physicality within us. I mean, it’s sparks off a certain…

M: It gets you out of the house.

P: Yeah, it’s an energy. You feel engaged, and that has so much to do with our brain activity and stimulating the different areas of our brain and getting that motivation to actually, ‘Oh, maybe I will go through a little jog or something, because I’m focused and I’m engaged’, and there are so many other things that are going on that it helps to propel you forward into so many other avenues.

M: Once you’ve dealt with the mental health, positive mental health aspects, it definitely does improve your motivation.

P: Mmm.

M: As we all know, when things like Covid hit and make it very apparent. There’s this thing called incidental movement.

P: Yes, Aarghh.

M: And before Covid hit, a lot of us would get up in the morning, shower, dress, walk out the house, get on the bus or get in the car, get to a train, walk between car parks or bus stops, etcetera.

P: Mmm hmm.

M: Up into the office. And then we’d go into the kitchen at some point mid-morning, we’d walk over to the bathroom.

P: Yep.

M: All of that’s incidental movement.

P: Mmm.

M: And when Covid hit are incidental movement dropped to a five-metre radius.

P & M: Laugh.

P: Yep.

M: Right, and a lot of people had negative health impacts from that.

P: Hugely.

M: And that also again, tightly linked with mental health. Right?

P: Definitely.

M: And what we find, particularly with retirees, is when you take away that morning reason to get up and get out of the house. They do what a lot of us did in covid.

P: Yep.

M: And again, unless you’re really aware of it and in tune to it, you can end up experiencing the exact same mental health implications and physical health implications as covid when you retire.

P: Yep.

M: So, you don’t have a reason to get up, you start sleeping in more. You might start drinking a little bit more or not looking after yourself as much, not moving all of that.

P: Yep.

M: So, volunteering gets you up and out of the house. It gives you a reason to move and put even just that basic, minimal level of daily movement back into your day. So that’s the first thing.

P: Yep.

M: So not only that, but then the science shows that the movement and volunteering in general has also been shown to help lessen symptoms of chronic pain and reduce risk of heart disease. So, all of this is interlinked as well, just getting that movement into your day.

P: Mmm.

M: But also, depending on what the volunteering activity is, you might be adding even more movement into your day as well. Not just the getting to and from.

P: Yeah, well, it’s things like volunteering for an organisation that might put housing opportunities together so you might be moving a couch for someone or going and doing someone’s windows or –

M: Mowing lawns.

P: – yeah, all that sort of stuff. Yeah, it does have a certain physicality to it. The heart disease one is an interesting one. I mean, that comes from –

M: – lower stress, better mental health outcomes, all tied to heart disease as well. So, there is again the cross links in here.

P: Yeah.

M: Everything is connected.

P: Yeah.

M: And then we’re nearly finished. So, last study in 2017 researchers looked at data on volunteering, employment, and health of more than 40,000 European citizens, and they found that volunteers are as healthy as non-volunteers who are five years younger.

P: Five years younger!

M: So, if you want to look five years younger.

P: No need for the Botox. Go and get a little dosage of volunteering.

M & P: Laugh.

M: So obviously, there’s so much in here about causality and all of that. So, I will say that the researchers controlled for other determinants of health, like gender, age, education level, et cetera. And they found, still, despite all of that, the volunteers were still in substantially better health than non-volunteers.

P: Mmm, yeah.

M: Now it is fair to say, and it is true to say that people with higher incomes tend to volunteer more often, and people with higher incomes have better health outcomes. More often, however, they looked at all of that and conclusively volunteering has a positive impact on our health.

P: Thank you randomised control trials.

M: Laugh. They did it all proper.

P: Yeah.

M: Alright, I’m not going to do this last quote because we are well over time. But as always, it’s been a pleasure.

P: Laugh. It’s been emotional.

M & P: Laugh!

M: And on that note. We’ll see you next week. Have a happy week.

P: Bye!

[Happy exit music – background]  

M: Thanks for joining us today if you want to hear more, please remember to subscribe and like this podcast and remember you can find us at www.marieskelton.com, where you can also send in questions or propose a topic.

P: And if you like our little show, we would absolutely love for you to leave a comment or rating to help us out.

M: Until next time.

M & P: Choose happiness.

[Exit music fadeout]  

Please note that I get a small commission if you buy something from my site. Your support helps to keep this site going at no additional cost to you. Thanks!  

Fighting the Loneliness Epidemic (E94)

by

Happiness for Cynics podcast

This week, Marie and Pete talk about fighting the loneliness epidemic and discuss 12 silver linings of positive solitude.

Show notes

12 Silver Linings of Positive Solitude 

  1. Self-Connection 
  1. Autonomy 
  1. Self-Determined Motivation 
  1. Competence/Skill-Building 
  1. Self-Growth 
  1. Felt Efficacy 
  1. Self-Reliance 
  1. Freedom from Pressure 
  1. Self-Reflection 
  1. Appreciation of the Environment 
  1. Spirituality 
  1. Peaceful Mood 

Transcript

[Happy intro music -background]  

M: Welcome to happiness for cynics and thanks for joining us as we explore all the things I wish I’d known earlier in life but didn’t.

P: This podcast is about how to live the good life. Whether we’re talking about a new study or the latest news or eastern philosophy, our show is all about discovering what makes people happy.

M: So, if you’re like me and you want more out of life, listen in and more importantly, buy in because I guarantee if you do, the science of happiness can change your life.

P: Plus, sometimes I think we’re kind of funny.

[Intro music fadeout]

M: Welcome back.

P: Hi hi hi!

M: And it’s another sunny day in Sydney.

P: Aaahhh… Beautiful, Lovely. It’s slightly windy, but you know, it’s good for the sailing ships.

M: Is it?

P: All those people are in the harbour that are sailing their yachts.

M: I guess…

P: Laugh.

M: Is really strong wind good?

P: Is it that strong?

M: I think it is pretty strong.

P: Palm trees are flowing everywhere… So, it is a bit strong.

M: Mmm.

P: Yeah.

M: Sailing is not my thing.

P: Laugh.

M: I’ve been sailing… once. And that was about it.

P & M: Laugh.

P: It’s a nice image to go with anyway. Somewhere, someone is enjoying the wind. Kite flyers will enjoy the wind.

M: There you go.

P: Yeah.

M: Unless there’s too much wind again.

P: Laugh.

M: Then that’s not good, cause a kite dive bombs.

P: I see images of Mary Poppins.

M: Laugh.

P: And being taken off by the wind.

M & P: Laugh.

M: We lost Mary!

P: Laugh, goodness me!

M & P: Laugh!

P: I’ve got something to share this week.

M: Oh!

P: A little tip for happiness.

M: Please do share.

P: Yeah. I was talking with a friend of mine, and she has a little happiness moment with her daughter every night, and it comes up with the Facebook reminder photos.

M: Aww. Yes.

P: So those little reminders that come back from your memory. So, she sits down with her daughter every night and goes, Okay, what are we remembering tonight? And an image will come up. And sometimes for Lucia, she doesn’t know Sandara’s pre-Lucia history. So, it’s a really nice way for Sandara to share with her daughter about ‘Oh, this is when I used to do this’ or ‘this is this person that I knew in this country’ and they have a really lovely little moment.

M: Aww.

P: And it’s their moment of appreciation and thankfulness for experiences.

M: I love it. There’s a great site launched recently, and it is about photos that bring you joy and happiness.

P: We talked about that once in an episode.

M: Yeah, we did a while ago. Every now and then I get an email and I go and have a squiz, you know, and it’s not only people posting photos of their pets, so there is more to it –

P: Laugh!

M: – than that, laugh. But again, photos and photo-taking we’ve discussed many times. There’s been lots of surveys and lots of research into the impacts of taking photos.

P: Mmm.

M: So, yeah, that’s a good one.

P: That’s a nice way to connect and it’s really easy.

M: Yep.

P: You can do it.

M: Yeah, and the benefit is to go back. So, now that everyone’s gone digital, we’re not pulling out the old photo albums and have people come around.

P: Yes, slide nights. Remember slide nights? Laugh.

M: Yep, laugh. Who can forget them.

P & M: Laugh!

P: Because we weren’t there when you went to Malta.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: Laugh.

M: I think, you know, being able to pull your phone out and still take some [photos] through your trip or something definitely has benefits.

P: Mmm, definitely. And it’s one of the uses of social media, which I still subscribe to, even though I’m very anti- social media. When I when I take a trip, I do publish because it’s the way that a lot of my family see my trip.

M: Yep.

P: And they like to see it as well.

M: Plus, when you do publish, you get the reminders.

P: Exactly that’s, that’s very true.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: So, it did make me think of that when I was talking to Sandara last week, so thank you for that, it was lovely.

M: All right. So, what are we talking about today?

P: Oh… What are we talking about today? I’ve forgotten already, laugh.

M: We’re talking about solitude and loneliness.

P: Laugh. That’s right. And positive solitude.

M: Yes. We’re talking about, one of the three pillars that we talk about, which is strong social connections, which has been proven time and time again to be one of the most influential factors in someone’s happiness.

P: It’s in the top three, isn’t it?

M: It is number one.

P: Oh, laugh.

M: So, we’ve got three pillars. This is one of them, and it is number one out of the three.

P: Laugh.

M: And if you look at the Harvard Longitudinal Study and it showed, it’s the longest study of its kind, looking at how long people live, how healthfully they live and how happy they are over their lives and those with strong social connections beat everyone else hands down.

P: The quality of life in their senior years particularly, was so much stronger and better.

M: Yes, from a physical health point of view as well as mental health. So, being lonely, we’re back here again, Pete.

P: Laugh.

M: Being lonely kills.

P: Mmm, yes. It does people. People die.

M: So, we’re talking today about the social connection pillar and two studies that have come out recently. So, the first one is all about the silver linings of solitude, and it found that alone time during covid was a rewarding experience for many.

P: Mmm.

M: So, we’re actually delving into the nitty gritty of these statements. You know, relationships are important. It’s a very broad-brush statement.

P: Laugh.

M: So, we’re trying to deep dive today into how come so many people experienced positive outcomes from being socially isolated.

P: Laugh. It doesn’t seem like the right thing, does it?

M: It’s completely backwards.

P: Laugh.

M: And there are reasons, and the reasons are that solitude and loneliness are two very different things.

P: Mmm, yeah. It’s good to be very clear about that, because loneliness is debilitating in all forms.

M: Yep.

P: But I think that solitude has this positive aspect to it, which is what the study talks about.

M: Yep, and really, it’s talking about the difference between being alone and being lonely.

P: Mmm.

M: And you can be alone. And as an introvert, I gravitate towards activities I do by myself.

P: Yep.

M: And love that time. And I wouldn’t say I’m lonely during those times.

P: Yeah.

M: Because when I’m lonely, I go seek out people. And in fact there are almost two different sides of that spectrum for me. So, if I’m lonely, I’ll go seek out people. if I want alone time, I don’t want people.

P: Mmm. It is a balancing act. It’s really a seesaw because you need to have both in your life. And it’s not necessarily a bad thing to be lonely for a very short period of time. Because if it propels you forward to create more social connections and remember to keep those connections happening, that’s a really good outcome.

M: Mmm hmm. Yep.

P: But it’s that, as I said, it’s a short term, and alone time is brilliant. It’s like being bored. It leads to something creative. It leads to something else, it leads to finding solutions or investing in self-reflection or meditation, or something that you wouldn’t do if you were distracted by other people.

M: Yep, absolutely. So, the researchers call it positive solitude.

P: Mmm, I like that.

M: Yep. And so what they have found and what positive solitude studies in general have found, is that many people flourish when they’re alone and thrive on the autonomy of not being with others.

P: Laugh. Marie’s putting her hand up here.

M: Absolutely, so I am definitely happier being stuck in a corner, doing my work by myself and not being bothered by people.

P: Laugh.

M: I love all my colleagues, don’t get me wrong, but a day full of meetings is draining for me, whereas a few hours in the afternoon, uninterrupted by anyone where I get to deep dive into work and find flow.

P: Mmm.

M: That is what brings me joy and satisfaction. And a lot of people discovered that when they went into lockdown, they also found enjoyment out of doing activities by themselves.

P: Mmm. Well, it’s interesting with the study because she talks about the lack of commute time or the lack of enforced alone time. And I was interested in that aspect because for me being on a tube going to work, it’s not the same as having a half hour to myself on the balcony at home, different parameters of… concepts of time, I think.

M: I think… it is different, but I have found that being able to put headphones on, on a bus can give me that same me time.

P: Yeah, totally agree with you.

M: They are different, though, and again, I think the bus is a very short term or the tube, short term amount of time. But there is something lovely in the morning when you are communing with being able to put your headphones on and tune out the world and listen to your favourite podcast or show or whatever it is that you’re doing.

P: Yeah, I learnt that last year with my drive to Uni. I thought, ‘Oh my God, 45 minutes, I’m going to go ah!!!’ And then I actually learned to just chill out, laugh.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: So, I’d put some queen on and put the top down and sing to my heart’s content.

M: Yep.

P: And that was really beneficial at 7:30 in the morning.

M: And again, there’s something lovely about that time and you can make it me time.

P: Yes.

M: Rather than a stressful commute.

P: Mmm, yep.

M: Yet again, I agree with you. It’ll never compare to just having 30 minutes at home by yourself because.

P: Yep.

M: Because you can’t really walk around in your underwear eating straight out of the peanut butter jar.

P: Laugh. Yeah.

M: On a bus!

P: Don’t laugh, people. You know it’s true. You all want to do it!

M & P: Laugh!

P: And I’m all for it. I’m all for those indulgences. I think that’s great. My poor housemate sometimes catches me in the middle of it.

M: Laugh. What this study found was for those with self-determined motivation, which has a lot to unpack. For those with self-determined motivation, solitude was a catalyst for self-growth and having more alone time gave them a chance to focus on skill building activities without interruption.

P: Mmm.

M: So, this is about the people who found motivation during lockdown, and a lot of people didn’t.

P: Yes.

M: And they floundered. But there was a subset of the population who found that during lockdown, they we’re motivated, and they experienced 12 different types of benefits to being in lockdown and having that alone time forced upon them.

P: Mmm, so does it come down to personality type?

M: Absolutely, yes.

P: Yeah, right. So, a certain personality type is more susceptible to loneliness, as opposed to –

M: Aah, I wouldn’t say that necessarily. To being motivated or demotivated by change.

P: Mmm.

M: To making the best of it into being optimistic and finding a way through versus being overcome by anxiety or the situation and not being proactive.

P: Mmm. I wonder if that’s trainable.

M: Optimism definitely is. And if I haven’t mentioned it before, I’ll mention it again. Down in Melbourne, Victor Perton has a great organisation called the Centre for Optimism. It’s a small membership fee, and they bring in experts from around the world and you can tune in on a lunchtime or an evening session. They’ve got great talks and it’s all about how to change the way you think.

P: That’s brilliant.

M: Yep.

P: So worthwhile, if I guess, if you are predetermined, predestined for that other side of loneliness then maybe that’s something to invest into.

M: Not so much loneliness, but optimism or not. And that optimism really dictates how you respond to what happens in your life.

P: Yeah, and we know that it’s our responses that determine our emotions.

M: Exactly, yeah. And so, if you shut down when lockdown happened for whatever valid reason, there was a lot going on, right?

P: Definitely, yeah.

M: So there’s no judgement at all there. But if, if you shut down as a result of lockdown and stopped reaching out to people and really just let the anxiety and the fear and the sadness overwhelm you, then that could lead to loneliness.

P: Yes, definitely. This is a technique that you can use to maybe interrupt that.

M: Absolutely. Whereas the optimists went, all right, how many fancy dress WebEx meetings can I set up?

P: Laugh!

M: How am I going to make sure that I get through this and I bring my friends through and my family through it, in a positive mental health space?

P: Mmm, mmm.

M: So, really I think the motivated individuals that they’re talking about here had 12 benefits and we won’t go into too much detail. But I will read out the 12 benefits.

P: Sure.

M: So, one is self-connection. So, connecting with yourself. Two [is] autonomy. So, really we’ve spoken a lot with meaning and purpose about the need for, and flow for autonomy and control at times.

P: Yep.

M: Three is self-determined motivation. So, it’s not me telling you, Pete, don’t be so lonely, talk to people?

P: Laugh! Cause that’s how it works.

M: Laugh.

P: Ok.

M: Sure.

P & M: Laugh.

M: And anyone who’s ever tried to tell a teenager to do something will know, it just doesn’t happen.

P: Laugh.

M: So, self-determined motivation is number three.

P: Yep.

M: Four is competence or skill building. I think, Udemy, which is an online learning platform, doubled their course –

P: Oh, really? Wow.

M: – their course sales when covid hit.

P: Gosh.

M: Five, self-growth, which is very closely tied to skill building but probably a bit more in the self-help category.

P: Yep.

M: Six is felt efficacy.

P: Oh, felt efficacy.

M: Yes. So again, there’s a lot in here about just being aware of yourself and your growth and your needs. And so, a lot of people have spent a lot of time understanding themselves better and knowing themselves better.

P: Knowing their strengths.

M: These people are efficient and feeling their efficacy.

P: Ok.

M: Self-reliance is number seven and again so great to build those skills and to do all those DIY projects –

P: Yeah.

M: – and learn how to make sour dough bread –

P: Laugh.

M: – and garden.

P: But know that you are okay on your own.

M: Yeah, number eight, this one was great for me, freedom from pressure.

P: Oh, that’s a lot to unpack.

M: I didn’t have to make excuses to not go out.

P: Laugh. Oh, yes. I’m feeling that today actually.

M & P: Laugh!

M: You’re coming up to exams, aren’t you?

P: Yeah, I had a little moment today, ‘I just want to go on my own! I need everyone to stop!’ Laugh.

M: Absolutely. So, number eight freedom from pressure.

P: Mmm.

M: Number nine, self-reflection. Again, you know, they’re all interlinked.

P: Yeah.

M: Ten, appreciation of the environment.

P: Oh, yes. That’s a big one.

M: Yep.

P: A lot of people found out things like, ‘Oh, there’s a park behind me that I can walk in because it’s the only thing I can do.’

M: Yep. Or even just, you know, I actually sat down, and I really, am very lucky that I live in the house I live in. So, the environment that I’m in, I’m so grateful for.

P: What I have at my fingertips.

M: Yep.

P: Yeah.

M: Number eleven, spirituality. A lot of people reconnected with self and spirit and with their faith.

P: Yep.

M: And then twelve, peaceful mood.

P: Oh, that’s very generic.

M: Well, I think for me not feeling pulled in a million directions to do you really gave me a sense of calm.

P: Yeah. Well, everyone’s always saying, if only we had four more hours in the day.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: Maybe you just need to be more selective to give yourself permission to give yourself more time?

M: Yeah, but then you’ve got the pressure to say yes and all of that stuff that gets added on.

P: Yeah.

M: So, I think people were freed from all of that extra expectation placed on them.

P: Yeah, obligation.

M: And they were just able to be –

P: More peaceful, yeah.  

M: Just able to be.

P: I wonder if that’s something that people are going to hold onto as we come on the other side of this.

M: I definitely [will].

P: Yeah, I think people make more of those conscious decisions.

M: To not do things.

P: To go, ‘No, I’m not going to buy… I’m not going to cover that up. I’m going to give myself that hour or hour and a half on my own.’

M: Well, I’ve actually gone into my calendar and put once a month for me time.

P: Yes!!

M: And a whole weekend, a whole weekend where I don’t commit to [anything].

P: Love it.

M: It’s not that I don’t love catching up with friends going out to dinner, going to theatre, but there comes a time where I’m like ‘I’m exhausted by this.’

P: I feel sometimes, I mean, this is the funny thing. You say all that and I’m like Marie’s always taking me places.

M & P: Laugh!

P: You’re always sending me invites.

M & P: Laugh!

P: And I’m supposed to be the extravert!

M & P: Laugh!

M: You’re just busy. All right, we’ll keep moving. So, obviously the people who did this study did realise that there is also a dark side to solitude.

P: Mmm.

M: So, we’ve talked about positive solitude.

P: Yep.

M: But a 14-year-old in the interviews mentioned quote, “I miss my friends and being able to interact with them.” And then a 37-year-old said, “For a long while I was fine, spending time by myself, as I’m a loner by nature. However, recently I felt very frustrated and angry that I don’t have any friends to call on.”

P: Yeah.

M: So, there is a real sharp edge that you can get to and fall off very quickly.

P: Yes.

P: And that’s the investment in those social connections.

M: Yes.

P: You have to keep them going. So, when the time comes where you do need to reach out, you have one or two there.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: That’s the important message people. And I know I’m banging; I’m getting excited people!

M & P: Laughter!

M: I’m going to have to tape your hands –

P: No!

M: – behind your back.

P: I want to move and be free and express myself, laugh.

M: All good. All right, So the second study is supporting very much the tried-and-true social connections are an important message that we –

P: Yes, this is the science.

M: Yes, the science.

P: We love this.

M: Laugh. So, there’s a recent study that took blood samples from older adults who have experienced social isolation, and they had higher levels of two biomarkers of inflammation. So, I’m going to try and pronounce them interleukin-6 and C-reactive protein.

P: Yes.

M: So, this was published in the Journal of American Geriatrics Society, and it looked at the negative long-term consequences of social isolation and the health of older people as they age.

P: Mmm.

M: And they looked at 4,648 Medicare beneficiaries aged 65 years and older. So, I think it’s, again we talk about the interlinking between mental health and physical health.

P: Yes.

M: And how in Western society we are only just waking up to how everything is connected. Mind and body, Eastern philosophy and Eastern medicine got there millennia before us.

P: Way back, laugh. 1000 years ago, they were there.

M: Yeah, so this is just another study that shows that loneliness and its impacts on our mental health has a physical impact on our bodies.

P: It predisposes us to inflammatory agents within our blood plasma interleukin-6 is a precursor to the C-reactive protein.

M: Oh, we’ve got him started.

P & M: Laugh!

P: It’s getting interesting, laugh! But these things are happening because of what’s going on with our mental capacity and our mental health.

M: Yeah.

P: They are the biomarkers that make us more disposed to experience inflammation and inflammation is such a big issue with so many people when they’re feeling low.

M: Yeah, the lead author, Thomas Cudjoe says,

“Our findings demonstrate an important association between social isolation and biological processes. This work is a step in the journey to disentangle the mechanisms by which social isolation leads to higher levels of morbidity and mortality.”

P: Totally linked. Yep.

M: Loneliness kills.

P: It does, people die.

M: Yep.

P: And we don’t say that lightly. It’s so true.

M: Absolutely, so this is the research showing why, as we get older building houses and homes that encourage social interaction.

P: Yes.

M: Rather than high rises where you never see your neighbours.

P: The density and all that sort of stuff.

M: All of those types of things for urban planning that we talk about and then investing in a lot of relationships and activities you can continue to do into your seventies, eighties and nineties.

P: Yep.

M: So important.

P: That sense of community and that supportive framework and parks and gardens.

M: And having an opportunity to meet new people on a regular basis, participating in your local RSL or whatever it is.

P: The Orchid society.

M: Absolutely and finding a way to make sure that once you can’t drive anymore that you can, you know that they’re accessible as well.

P: Yeah.

M: All of that is really important. And as our baby boomers start hitting retirement age or they’ve already started, I think we’re going to see huge changes in how our older generations get around and how they live.

P: And how they interact as well.

M: So that will be good for our generation for the X’s and everyone after millennials.

P: Yeah.

M: I think we’re going to see some big, big changes in healthcare.

P: And it’s good that you have organisations such as city councils and land councils that are recognising this. And they are investing in these in making cities more liveable, so important.

M: Yep, absolutely.

P: Mmm.

M: More liveable and more able to connect.

P: Yep. Because social connection is what? [Whispers] …Primary.

M: It kills people.

P: Laugh! Way to bring it down, Marie.

M: Wait. Without social interaction –

P: Okay.

M: – you die.

P: Laugh! And on that note!

M: That’s one for another episode. Thank you for joining us and have a happy week.

P: Chow.

[Happy exit music – background]

M: Thanks for joining us today if you want to hear more, please remember to subscribe and like this podcast and remember you can find us at www.marieskelton.com, where you can also send in questions or propose a topic.

P: And if you like our little show, we would absolutely love for you to leave a comment or rating to help us out.

M: Until next time.

M & P: Choose happiness.

[Exit music fadeout]  

Please note that I get a small commission if you buy something from my site. Your support helps to keep this site going at no additional cost to you. Thanks!  

Finding Flow (E93)

by

Happiness for Cynics podcast

This week Marie and Pete talk about finding your flow and the wonderful benefits it can give you on your journey to true happiness.

Transcript

[Happy intro music -background] 

M: Welcome to happiness for cynics and thanks for joining us as we explore all the things I wish I’d known earlier in life but didn’t.  

P: This podcast is about how to live the good life. Whether we’re talking about a new study or the latest news or eastern philosophy, our show is all about discovering what makes people happy.  

M: So, if you’re like me and you want more out of life, listen in and more importantly, buy in because I guarantee if you do, the science of happiness can change your life.  

P: Plus, sometimes I think we’re kind of funny. 

[Intro music fadeout] 

M: Welcome back.

P: I’m in a recumbent position and I’m not moving.

M: Laugh. Pete’s sitting, his legs crossed and his arm above his head.

P: I’ve been told that I’m not allowed to move because I make too much noise, laugh!

M: He does, our poor production people.

P: Laugh!

M: Person, sorry.

P & M: Laughter.

P: Yeah, we have a team.

M & P: Laughter.

M: Yes, Pete has a habit of scratching furiously –

P: Laugh.

M: – jingling his bracelets, clicking his fingers.

P: Laugh, I just like to express myself every now and then get myself into a mode and I like to let everybody know how I’m feeling.

M: Laugh. And by every now and then, you mean every two minutes.

P & M: Laughter.

P: If you’re wondering what we’re talking about. We’re talking about how to do a radio interview properly and how you have to sit with your hands on the table feet apart.

M: You should plant yourself in a position where – See he’s already just running his hands over his leg. Laugh.

P: I like touching things I can’t help it!

M & P: Laughter!

M: Very tactile, laugh.

P: You want people to be relaxed and be able to respond during an interview. So, for those of us who are more physically inclined.

M: Then we’d probably get you to stand in front of a mic that’s fixed.

P: Ahh…

M: So that you can’t touch things or bang things –

P: That wouldn’t work for me. Laugh.

M: – or just stay put! Well, for those of you who listen to our show, we hope you find the [background noise] …noise that is constant. Laugh. Pete just dropped a pillow.

P: Laugh. I did not!

M: We hope you find it charming, not amateurish.

P: Laugh, it’s something new every week that people can enjoy.

M: Laugh. All right, well, today we are actually exploring our full range of emotions, and it is not such a happy day today because we are sad to say that Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has passed away at the age of 87.

P: Mmm hmm.

M: So, he’s a Hungarian-American psychologist, and we started out really early by looking at his work on flow, didn’t we, Pete?

P: Mmm. He was the first person that I remembered because I had to remember his name.

M: Laugh.

P: Had to learn how to say it.

M: We spent a lot of time drilling in Csikszentmihalyi, Csikszentmihalyi, Csikszentmihalyi.

P: Laugh.

M: And for those of you who you think that’s only four syllables, I think there’s like 20 letters, though. [16 letters]

P: Yeah, there was an alphabet.

M: Laugh.

Csikszentmihalyi was Hungarian-American, and he was known for his work in the study of happiness and creativity. He was really a pioneer in the positive psychology space, and in particular he introduced flow theory in the seventies, and he defined flow as a state of mind attained when one becomes fully immersed in an activity.

P: He was a real ground breaker, though I can’t imagine many people in the seventies who weren’t living in communes and going around and burning their bras.

M: Remember, he came from Hungary to the States in 1956.

P: Mmm.

M: So, he would have been living through World War II prior to that.

P: Yeah. It makes his ideas and his brain even more amazing.

M: Absolutely.

P: Chicago’s a pretty, pretty liberal kind of place. It has got some great minds and some really broad thinking people there.

M: Yep.

P: But in the seventies, he was in San Francisco. This person would have gone around going, “I want to talk about flow.” Laugh. Can you imagine what these academics?

M: Laugh.

P: I mean, this is exactly what the podcast is about. It’s about the cynical brain, and I just think someone who is that ground breaking, who could go, “I’m going to explore this and I’m going to pursue it with research.”

M: Mmm hmm.

P: That’s amazing conviction.

M: I think that a lot of people, you know, Viktor Frankl is another great example of someone who, so he wrote Man’s Search for Meaning and he spent a lot of his time researching what makes people happy and he lived through the camps.

P: Yeah, mmm.

M: So, I think Csikszentmihalyi – Pete’s changing chairs.

P & M: Laugh.

M: His knees are cracking.

P & M: Laugh.

M: Now Csikszentmihalyi, I don’t believe it was in the camps, but I do believe he was [affected].

P: Mmm.

M: He lived through World War II and was definitely impacted by it. And I think that led a lot of people to want to study psychology.

P: And the meanings and reasons behind why people behave in a certain way, yes.

M: And what matters in life. Just like over the last 18 months, a lot of people around the world during the pandemic have reassessed their lives and what is and isn’t important.

P: Mmm, yes. Hugely.

M: Yeah, so whereas you and I have planted gardens, Csikszentmihalyi dedicated his life to helping other people understand what brings happiness. He developed this theory of flow and received a lot of awards and an external recognition for that and spent a lot of time in universities teaching others about how to live life.

P: Mmm, yeah again that would have been a ground-breaking area of development.

M: And the field of positive psychology was really new then.

P: Yeah, yeah, certainly in it’s infancy.

M: And he was not only a pioneer in flow, but more broadly positive psychology and really helped the movement gain traction more broadly and with the public.

P: Yeah, yeah. So, for those who may not have heard our previous episode on this. Marie, what is flow?

M: Flow.

P: Yeah.

M: Flow, F – L – O – W, not Flo down the road.

P: Laugh. She makes the best pumpkin scones, I swear.

M: Laugh. Or not ‘flow’s come to town.’

P: Laugh.

M: Which is such an Aussie –

P: Laugh.

M: – saying. I’m not going to explain for our overseas listeners –

P: Laugh!

M: – what that means.

P: Laugh. Australian colloquialisms.

M: Let’s just say it happens once a month for most women.

P: Laugh.

M: So, what it [flow] means is that you’re completely focused on the task at hand, to the point that you forget about yourself and others and about the world around you.

P: Mmm.

M: So, you might lose track of time. But it doesn’t matter because you’re so engrossed in your activity and so happy in the moment.

P: Mmm. We’ve talked about it being a state of presence and a real mindfulness.

M: It’s this weird dichotomy where you’re so in the moment that you’re unaware of what’s happening around you.

P: Yes.

M: So, I’ve got a quote here from Csikszentmihalyi. So, he says,

“Contrary to what we usually believe, the best moments in our lives and not the passive receptive, relaxing times, although such experiences can also be enjoyable if we’ve worked hard to attain them. The best moments usually occur when a person’s body your mind, is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.”

P: So, it’s those things that you remember when you’re reflecting on something from 10 years ago or when you’re maybe in a stressful situation and you’re recalling that ‘No, I’m sure I can do this, I remember back in 1982 when I did that’, and I was in that moment. Is that kind of what flow does? It makes, it builds a little bit of resilience maybe it builds a little bit of a marker for us to rely on in future times?

M: I guess it does in the sense that if you’re looking at not giving up.

P: Mmm.

M: Or using your passion to dedicate time to building skills or depth of understanding, I guess from that point of view you could use it. But I think more than that, it’s the pleasure it brings in the moment. Just like mindfulness has been proven scientifically to help with happiness levels. It’s about being deeply engrossed in something and flow, similar to meditation, has the same types of impacts on the brain.

P: Mmm.

M: The same types of positive impacts and visualisation during flow can give similar results to when people are meditating. So, really, it’s about creating an environment where you can just follow your passion down a rabbit hole.

P: Laugh, be like Alice!

M & P: Laugh!

P: Follow the White Rabbit.

M: Exactly, follow the white rabbit and come out the other side, and you’ll feel proud and satisfied of what you’ve done that day versus eight hours on the couch Netflixing.

P: Mmm.

M: Which as Csikszentmihalyi says here can also be enjoyable.

P: Right, but in a different way?

M: Exactly. Or, you know, if you’ve worked really hard for a holiday and you just want to lay on the beach for a few days, that can be a good experience, and definitely we need that kind of rest as we’ve discussed before.

P: Yep.

M: But flow is a different type of… I won’t say rest, but it can be equally as satisfying and equally as positive to your mental health.

P: It’s kind of like a way of tapping into that well spring of positivity. For those who are maybe a little bit obsessive compulsive or much more active people, people like yourself who might struggle with meditation. This is another way of accessing those benefits.

M: Yeah.

P: In a very different format. You can be as neurotic as you want about getting the grout out of the bathroom if you really want to if that’s your flow.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: It’s much more in touch with… mindfulness with activity? Is that a fair call?

M: Yeah, I’d say so. And it’s about also achieving things. So many people read Marie Kondo’s book or watched her on Netflix and got to packing their T shirts in those little tepee things in the drawers.

P: Laugh.

M: You know what I’m talking about, laugh. I know you do.

P: Laugh!

M: And you know that was lockdown activity number one. Let’s go through and spring clean and de-clutter everything. And a lot of people really took a lot of satisfaction from spring cleaning their places during lockdown.

P: Yep.

M: So absolutely, you can apply it to many different things.

P: Laughter!

M: For me, it’s writing so I can start writing and look up hours later and the sun has gone down.

P: Yeah. When you’re in that moment, and it’s kind of really special because it doesn’t happen very easily. It doesn’t happen all the time, not every time do you sit down to write does it happen. It’s got to be –

M: Sadly, no.

P & M: Laugh.

P: – the right atmosphere, the sun is going to be in the right position, you know a butterfly has to have flapped its wings in Tokyo.

M: Mmm hmm, laugh.

P: You know. All that sort of stuff, laugh.

M: And there’s a great quote by Margaret Thatcher, and she says,

“Look at a day when you’re supremely satisfied at the end of it. It’s not a day when you lounge around doing nothing. It’s a day when you’ve had everything to do, and you’ve done it.”

P: Mmm.

M: So, it’s like the satisfaction of ticking that last item off your to do list and then closing your laptop down on a Friday afternoon.

P: Yes, laugh.

M: Being like, ‘Yes! it’s the weekend.’

P: Laugh, it’s 5:03.

M: Laugh. Eh… Four o’clock.

P & M: Laugh!

M: Now, I’ll watch some Ted talks, laugh. Hang out here till the boss isn’t watching.

P & M: Laugh.

P: They’ve already been down at the pub for three hours.

M: Laugh! So, really, what we’re talking about. And, we mentioned this, I think it was episode five that we first talked about flow.

What is Flow and How to Find it (E5)

P: Yes, it was right at the beginning.

M: Yes, before you were studying and we’re throwing out scientific terms at us, left, right and centre.

P: Laugh.

M: We discussed the default Mode Network, or DMN.

P: Yes.

M: Where all your autopilot/default activities happen.

P: Yeah.

M: And so, to explain that term before we move on. So, as kids, everything is new and we’re constantly learning. And as we get older, things become more of the same, and as a result, our brains don’t need to try as hard.

P: Yes.

M: And they instead operate in the default mode network. So that’s when you’re on autopilot. But when you’re in a state of flow, just like when we’re experiencing awe, we move from the autopilot part of our brains to the learning and inspiration part.

So, it’s about switching from wake up, feed the kids, have a shower, brush your teeth, get out the door, get on your public transport, get to work. It’s about switching off that default mode network and that do this every day and switching on –

P: Yeah, it’s almost passive in a way, isn’t it?

M: Yeah, switching off the passiveness and switching on the engagement, the excitement.

P: OH MY GOD THAT’S A RED PEN ON THE FLOOR! Laugh!

M: Laugh, right? Imagine going back to Disneyland for the first time every day?

P: Ooohhh!!!!!

M: Right? That’s what you’re trying to tap into that wonder and awe.

P: Yeah.

M: Awe is another one as well. You know, for me, the moment that really brings back memories of awe was first seeing Taj Mahal. I imagine if I went back, I wouldn’t have that same feeling.

P: It’s divine, mmm.

M: Yep, it is. It’s about trying to find ways to tap into that again, and you can actually do that. And so maybe we can move forward with ways to bring more flow into your life and deliberately put into practise. Because there are… Oh, God, we’re sounding old now, 50 years of research now, thanks to Csikszentmihalyi on this topic. Since it first came out in the seventies.

P: Yeah, wow.

M: First one, Get rid of the bloody mobile phones.

P: Yes! I’m fully on board for that one. Put it down. Put it in a drawer. And where I first went with this idea is give yourself time.

M: Yep.

P: Give yourself some time to experience flow, set some time in a diary and go ‘this is my flow hour.’ You might not get there but give yourself an hour to explore it.

M: Absolutely. And to do that,

P: Uninterrupted.

M: Yes, it needs to be uninterrupted. So, if you’re sharing a house with someone else, maybe try going to sit in the park.

P: Mmm.

M: Or go to the library.

P: Yep.

M: Those things still exist.

P: Laugh.

M: I know we get all our content online nowadays, but libraries have really evolved quite a bit.

P: I think they’ve done a remarkable job of remaining current and appropriate in the digital age.

M: Mmm hmm. Absolutely. So, go find somewhere quiet and turn off your phone. Put it on silent or leave it another room to stop you checking it because the other thing we do with our phones is if they’re within hands reach in that moment when we’re switching thinking from one idea to the next, we reach for the phone. We go ‘I wonder if anyone’s messaged, I wonder if I’ve gotten an email’ and it’s about not doing that and letting the ideas flow from one to the next, not interrupting that thinking.

P: Mmm and that’s a training thing as well, doing that repeatedly actually makes it an easier state. You don’t get distracted by the technology quite as often.

M: Mmm hmm. Even the technology that’s not on, right?

P: Laugh.

M: Because it’s just in arm’s reach. You turn it back on.

P: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

M: Okay, so number two, we kind of touched on this and they’re all interlinked, is get away from other people.

P: Laugh, have your moment.

M: Mmm hmm. If you’ve got kids, you know, the phone ringing, the TV blaring, you know our busy lives can just feel like one big interruption, and I know at work I have in the past really struggled with finding flow. And as someone who needs to do a lot of writing and thinking, it’s really difficult when you’re constantly being pinged on teams and messenger or whatever your platform is that your company uses to communicate and then you’ve got emails and then you’ve got your phone and it’s exhausting at times to never have that time to do deep work.

P: Mmm.

M: And meetings.

P: Laugh.

M: Oh my goodness, do we love a meeting in corporate world? So, it’s about blocking out time, and I do this now. So, three days a week, not every day but three days a week. I’ll block a two-hour block, and mostly I’m successful at protecting it. And I’ll close down my email and my messenger apps and then just do some work. And I find I come out the other side of that day so much more satisfied with myself.

P: Mmm, yep.

M: Absolutely. Because I’ve actually done some work that day.

P: Because you’ve given yourself the time and eliminated distractions.

M: Yep, and not only that, I do get work done in between meetings and multitasking and all the rest of it. But there’s nothing like the flow that comes from the two hours uninterrupted work.

P: Mmm, the quality. Yeah. And I find that even when I’m working with someone as a client, as a massage therapist, it’s very easy for me to cut out all the distractions. And people tend not to want to interrupt that space.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: Unless they really, really have to. And it is. It’s lovely when I’m in there and I remember going back to when I first started professional work as a massage therapist, really easy for me to do 2.5 hour treatments because there wasn’t a time limit with certain clients and I could indulge and so I could actually –

M: How do I get a massage therapist like you?

P: Laugh! Get them when they’re young.

M & P: Laugh!

P: That’s all I can say, laugh! But it was that love. It was that lovely indulgence. And when you’re in that space, you can do some pretty amazing quality work because it builds one on top of the other. It’s that cumulative effect, if you like, of achievement. And, as you said, unlocking even more fabulousness from yourself.

M: Yeah, absolutely. So, the third thing is, find the right task that you can immerse yourself in. Folding the laundry doesn’t count.

P: Laugh. This comes back to our conversation about passion, I think.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: Knowing what it is that gives you that flow. Or what activity is that you know you can achieve that state in.

M: Yep. So, Csikszentmihalyi says it needs to be sufficiently difficult without being overwhelmingly difficult or unachievable.

P: Yeah, yeah.

M: So, there’s got to be a challenge there to it. This is why study, is a good one.

P: Yep.

M: So, I don’t know… As someone who’s gone back to university whether you’ve experienced flow when studying.

P: Completely, yeah. Especially when I’m engaged with the content. You do, you look up and go, ‘Oh my god, it’s dark. Where’d the day go?’ Laugh.

M: But I will say both of us are quite similar. And where we go to with our flow activity is it is so subjective, though. So, just because we haven’t mentioned it today in this podcast doesn’t mean that… You know maybe riding a horse –

P: Yeah.

M: – is your thing. Trying to think of things that other people might, laugh.

P: Climbing a mountain.

M: Mmm.

P: Like going for a peak, for example? I mean, that’s very challenging, and that can be a flow moment.

M: Yep.

P: It means you’re doing it on your own, laugh!

M: Yeah, definitely. So, there are some ideas that we can give you. Well three in particular. So, if you’re looking for things to bring flow and also some other benefits as well, a lot of it can be found by doing things in a novel or new.

P: Mmm.

M: So, find inspiration by doing something new. So, sign up for a class or activity or course that’s a good one.

P: Yep.

M: Find inspiration by going somewhere new. So go for a mountain climb or get out of town. Even, what I love doing is getting on the hop on, hop off bus.

[Hop on Hop off Bus Tours – providing sightseeing tours on an open-top bus where you can hop on and off to explore it all at your own pace.]

P: Laugh.

M: Love it. And then find inspiration by meeting someone new. Oh, and having a conversation or sparking new ideas with people.

P: Which might lead to new activities, yeah. I like that.

M: Mmm hmm. Or you can try volunteering or joining a book club.

P: Putting yourself in flows way.

M: Yes.

P: Laugh.

M: Absolutely. All right, well, that’s all we have time for today. Again, so sad news today in the positive psychology community.

P: Yes.

M: But –

P: What a legacy to leave.

M: Yeah.

P: Yeah, I just think it’s such a fabulous thing. I was the inventor of flow and positive thinking. Thanks. Goodbye, laugh.

M: Peace out, mic drop.

P: Laugh.

M: Laugh. Alright, well on that note, wishing you a happy week with plenty of flow.

P: Chow

[Happy exit music – background] 

M: Thanks for joining us today if you want to hear more, please remember to subscribe and like this podcast and remember you can find us at www.marieskelton.com, where you can also send in questions or propose a topic. 

P: And if you like our little show, we would absolutely love for you to leave a comment or rating to help us out. 

M: Until next time. 

M & P: Choose happiness.  

[Exit music fadeout] 

Please note that I get a small commission if you buy something from my site. Your support helps to keep this site going at no additional cost to you. Thanks! 

Covid Burnout and Why You Need a Holiday Pronto (E92)

by

Happiness for Cynics podcast

This week, Marie and Pete talk about Covid burnout, how it may be affecting you and why you need a holiday pronto.

Show notes

What does Covid burnout look like? – Sourced from Covid Fatigue and Burnout: How to Cope (healthline.com)

  • Feeling cynical and emotionally exhausted. Two of the most common burnout symptoms are feeling emotionally drained and cynical about the world around you. Researchers have observed these symptoms in people who have worked in demanding environments during the pandemic. 
  • Being less effective on the job. Burnout happens when you’ve run out of personal resources. Self-doubt creeps in and, over time, you may not be able to pay as much attention to work tasks. Researchers have noticed that some people with pandemic-related burnout begin feeling like a failure at work. 
  • Having a deep sense of anxiety about the future. Your anxiety may be related to your own future or the future of your community and the wider world. Researchers think this anxiety comes from the fact that you can’t predict when the pandemic will end. When things are unpredictable, people often feel they have no control over their lives. 
  • Being less willingness to comply with health guidelines. As the pandemic drags on, more people are tiring of restrictions such as mask-wearing and social distancing. Growing tired of inconvenient public safety measures may be natural, but experts say it could prolong the pandemic even further. 

Transcript

[Happy intro music -background] 

M: Welcome to happiness for cynics and thanks for joining us as we explore all the things I wish I’d known earlier in life but didn’t.  

P: This podcast is about how to live the good life. Whether we’re talking about a new study or the latest news or eastern philosophy, our show is all about discovering what makes people happy.  

M: So, if you’re like me and you want more out of life, listen in and more importantly, buy in because I guarantee if you do, the science of happiness can change your life.  

P: Plus, sometimes I think we’re kind of funny. 

[Intro music fadeout] 

P: And we’re back.

M: We’re back.

P: Here we are. Glad to see you all again. See you? See you? We’re seeing you. Laugh.

M: We’re seeing you?

P: Yeah, we’re seeing you today. We’re exploring our auras. We’re seeing the world.

M: Nice to see you and be seen.

P: Laugh, yeah. Ok, that’s nice.

M: Yes. How you doing?

P: Really!? Been a bad week, laugh. I’ve hit saturation point, I think.

M: Okay. Too much going on?

P: Either that or I’ve hit the point where I know that it’s the end or I know that it’s close to the end.

M: Mmm.

P: And so, I’m a big believer in The Body Keeps the Score [by Dr Bessel van der Kold M.D.]

M: Yeah.

P: Which is a very good book. The body lets you know when you’ve had enough, and it will hold off if you tell it to but it will hit you in the backside, laugh!

M: But then you crack.

P: Laugh, yep.

M: And just when you take holidays you get a cold.

P: Yeah, because you’ve turned off.

M: Laugh.

P: So, I kind of have hit this week going, ‘Oh, the end is in sight and I’m up to date with everything I can actually take a little bit of a load off.’

M: Laugh.

P: Oh dear, there goes my back and there goes my face, and you know, I was all weepy eyed.

M: There goes your face?

P: Yeah, I had a bad face day on Sunday. I was out for lunch and my, my eyes just wouldn’t stop weeping.

M: Aww.

P: And my right eye started to actually close in on me.

M: I have a lazy eyelid. You have to look closely.

P: Laugh!

M: But when I get drunk! It’s out there for everyone to see.

P & M: Laugh.

P: Are you looking at me? Or around the corner?

M: Laugh, not a lazy eye. Just a lazy eyelid.

P & M: Laugh!

P: So, yeah, hitting the wall.

M: So, this is really topical, actually, because today we’re going to talk about covid burnout. We’ve spoken a bit about work burnout and World Health Organisation, a couple of years ago now, started talking about burnout as a medical condition.

P: Mmm.

M: But today we’re not talking about normal burnout. We’re talking about covid burnout.

P: How is that more specific?

M: So, the World Health Organisation defines, its pandemic fatigue so they define pandemic fatigue as being demotivated and exhausted with the demands of life during the covid crisis.

P: Hmm.

M: So, the World Health Organisation warns that this fatigue could ultimately lead to longer, more devastating pandemic. So how this plays out in real life is you know, at the beginning of the pandemic, when we were scared and unsure, we were willing to follow the rules, we chipped in and did the right thing.

P: Laugh, everyone was doing the right thing, yeah.

M: Yeah, we made, we made an effort to wear a mask even outside.

P: Yes.

M: Even when the rules were unclear.

P: Yes.

M: We kept our distance in supermarkets and followed those little stickers.

P: Laugh.

M: Just to make sure we were 1. 5 metres away.

P: Laugh.

M: And we went got our vaccines when they were made available to us in general. We even did that weird elbow bump thing for a while.

P: Ahh…

M: Did you ever do that?

P: No, I didn’t. I did the fist bump, but not the elbow bump.

M: Uh huh. We did that, because we wanted to follow the rules and chip in and do our part for society and for helping to end the pandemic.

P: True.

M: Now, over time, we’re not as fearful. We kind of know what to expect we’re more frustrated, right?

P: I agree with that. Yeah.

M: So, this has been going on for a really long time and to be quite frank we’re just tired of it all.

P: Hmm.

M: So, that’s when exhaustion and complacency set in. And that’s what we’re talking about when we talk about covid burnout.

P: Mmm. Would you be able to apply this to maybe other pandemics like the Spanish flu as well?

M: You can apply it to any negative long events. So, if anyone’s ever cared for someone who’s terminally ill –

P: Yes.

M: – for a particularly long period of time, you can burn out with that.

P: Yes. Yeah, totally.

M: If you have, perhaps been in a war situation. I mean, these are extremes, right?

P: Mmm.

M: War situation. You can be extremely resilient. Humans are so resilient.

P: Very much, yeah.

M: But there comes a point where you’re just, you’re just over it.

P: I think when the threat is removed, I think what whilst you’re in the threat, you’re going, you’re in fright or flight, you’re in sympathetic nervous system response.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: You are running from the lion, and humans can do that for a very long time.

M: For a certain amount of time. But, you know, if you go back to World War II, that was a number of years. So, 1939 to 1945. I’m guessing after two, three years of, you know, Anne Frank hiding in a tiny upstairs room, she would have hit the wall at some point and gone. ‘I’m done. Maybe I want to go outside’, right? So, whether or not she did, um, I don’t know. I don’t know enough about her story even though I’ve read the book.

P: Mmm.

M: But at some point, people sort of would take more risks. She might go downstairs and look out a window.

P: Yeah, yeah. That’s true.

M: Right? There just comes a point where you go, ‘Oh, is this really worth it?’ And without any foresight and knowing when a war might end or a pandemic, how the pandemic might end or what the future could look like, It’s really hard to make rational, proper decisions.

P: Now that’s an interesting thing to explore scientifically, I imagine. What our brain does –

M: Mmm hmm.

P: – after a sustained period of fear.

M: And not only the brain, but how it impacts you physically. And there are so many studies of kids that were born during the war.

P: Mmm.

M: Not only the mental health implications on the mother and how that translated in utero to the kids and their personalities and all the rest of it, but also the physical implications of high stress.

P: Yep.

M: To the person experiencing the stress, but also they pass it through in different ways to their kids.

P: Definitely, yeah. And those hormones have an effect on foetal development.

M: Yep.

P: And more importantly on brain development.

M: Yep, absolutely.

P: Certain parts of the brain develop quicker or lag.

M: Yep. And so many of us have been in that low level fright phase, not so much flight phase for the last 18 months, which is low levels of stress, really is what we’re talking about.

P: It is, but the stimulus for the sympathetic nervous system doesn’t differentiate between stress.

M: Yep.

P: So, we could be having a less stress or more stress but the hormonal release is the same. The access which is activated to the adrenal glands still fires. So, the body doesn’t necessarily go, ‘Oh, this is a 50% stress.’ It just goes, ‘It’s stress!’

M: Yep.

P: So, that in built reaction of the brain releasing hormones from the hypothalamus into the pituitary gland down to the adrenal cortex.

M: What does differ, though, is our reaction to that stress. And so, if it’s unmanageable, then we’ll go into anxiety, depression, etcetera and a lot of people around the world have. A lot of people have been dealing with that stress and coping with it. And this is where they’ve gone from, perhaps flourishing and dealing with good mental health and doing all the things they should to coming back to languishing in a way. And maybe we can look at what are some of the signs of this covid burnout. So, in a lot of ways, it’s very similar to normal work burnout and everyone is different.

P: Yes.

M: We read a great article from healthline talking about some of the symptoms, so things like feeling cynical and emotionally exhausted.

P: Mmm.

M: So, probably two of the most common burnout symptoms for all types of burnout is just being emotionally drained and starting to get a bit negative, just really not having that well of positivity and mental health to draw from.

P: Yeah. All of a sudden, the coffee that won’t taste right becomes a dramatic throw it against the wall kind of moment.

M: Yeah, and we’re observing a lot of that with frontline employees, your nurses and doctors who have been in it for a very long time, who started out really positive and gung ho.

P: Yep.

M: And we’re going to save as many people as we can. And now a lot of the discussion in our media is about, ‘I can’t believe they’re still not vaccinating. I’m done with this. I’m not staying in this profession.’ You know, they’ve really just had enough.

P: Mmm.

M: And they can’t see the forest for the trees. They need a holiday, really. Laugh.

P: Oh, yes.

M: They need a break from all of the stress.

P: Yeah, don’t we all get to that point sometimes where you just need –

M: You need a break.

P: – a moment to step away, yeah.

M: And no one can step away from Covid. So, that’s the catch here.

P: Yeah, you can’t escape it in a way, especially when it’s restricting your movements.

M: Yes.

P: And I’ve noticed that with a lot of my clients, the things that they’ve usually dealt with that have helped them deal with stress, they haven’t had access to.

M: Yeah, like going to the gym.

P: Yeah.

M: So, the second one is being less effective in your work. So again, burnout happens when you just run out of that well of energy and resilience.

P: Mmm.

M: And things like self-doubt start to creep in. You don’t pay as much attention to work tasks or your family and really, the negative emotions that come with that, that lack of satisfaction from doing a job, start to spiral.

P: Mmm. The self-doubt one is a big one, because that’s like a little wedge that gets inside the door, and it grows.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: It is like a cancer. It starts to spread, and so all of a sudden, you’re making rash decisions. You’re making emotional decisions.

M: Emotional, yes.

P: Not logical [decisions]. Or you’re not having that that calmness because you’re second guessing everything that you do.

M: Yep, and not only that, you’re then doing a worse job, which then reinforces that.

P: Mmm.

M: And the smallest suggestion or criticism or, you know, opportunity for improvement, otherwise known as a shit sandwich –

P: Laugh!

M: – from the boss. You get really defensive. You take it personally.

P: Yes, yeah.

M: You come home and have to vent. It gets blown out of proportion. It’s tough to get good perspective on what’s going on.

P: Mmm, mmm. I agree very much.

M: All right, so the third thing or symptom that you could be seeing if you’re experiencing Covid burnout is a sense of anxiety about the future, so heightened anxiety levels. So, that could be related to your future, whether you’re uncertain about your current job or going back out into society now that everything is opening up, your future for your community or your family or the world in general.

P: Mmm.

M: So, the anxiety comes from the fact that you can’t predict when things are going to end or how they’re going to turn out. You’ve got little control over what’s going to happen. So, again, having less resilience and having been on that heightened level of stress for such a long period of time. That’s taken away your resilience and taken away your, your stock. Your well.

P: Your well of well-being.  

M: Yep, it means that you can start dwelling on this and going down that spiral and just being more anxious in general.

P: Mmm.

M: We’re seeing a lot of that as companies return to work.

P: The workspace?

M: Yeah, and they’re asking employees to come back in. And there are quite a few people who are just really unsure about going back into the office.

P: Mmm.

M: Getting on public transport, sitting in an office space where there’s recycled air all day. All of those things that are at higher risk for catching Covid.

P: Mmm. That’s the fear factor of it all, isn’t it?

M: Mmm hmm.

P: It’s playing into that fear. So, is it possible to remove that fear? Is that where, is that part of a? I’m probably jumping ahead of the gun here. We haven’t gotten to the fourth one yet.

M: Mmm hmm. Look, if you can predict the future, you can.

P: Laugh, well true. I guess it is about addressing those areas of control and addressing the areas of resilience and doing the work that we’ve talked about in many episodes about your mental health work and your homework and your emotional understanding.

M: Mmm hmm. And we’ll get to that in the next section.

P: Ok, sorry.

M: So, the last Covid burnout.

P: [whispers] I’m going to be quiet now I’m going to go over here.  

M: Laugh, ok you go sit in the corner.

P: [whispers] I’ll go sit with the cat.

M & P: Laugh!

M: So, the last burnout symptom to keep an eye out for is being less willing to comply with health guidelines.

P: Oh! This is me!

M: It’s me, too. So, today. So, we still have in our building mandatory mask wearing in common areas. So, when you go through the lifts and lobbies and today, I had to run downstairs and pick something up from a friend and I went out the door, pressed the buzzer on the lift and went, ‘Oh, I don’t have my mask, I forgot my mask.’

P: He, he.

M: ‘Oh, well, I’ll be quick.’

P: Yeah.

M: Went down the lift, out the door. Don’t tell my building manager.

P: Laugh.

M: But you know, when this first began, I would have quickly run back into the house and got my mask. This is probably the first time I’ve gone, ‘Oh well’, and done it anyway.

P: It’s very common at the moment, though.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: I’m seeing a lot of people, and I’m a big, very guilty of this, I will take my mask off to walk down the street because I’m so sick of wearing it, laugh. And when it’s a beautiful sunny day, it’s like I just want to enjoy it. And if I’ve got my [mask]. When the Covid ban was still in and we were still being obliged to wear masks, I would walk away from people. If they were walking against me, I would maintain the 1.5 metre distance –

M: Mmm hmm.

P: – but I’d have the mask down, I must admit. It was just a sense of freedom for me.

M: Yep.

P: And it was that, I think what you’re saying here is right is that willingness to comply. My willingness is gone. It’s like, I’m over this. I don’t want to do this anymore. And, you know, we haven’t had a COVID case in that area yet, and I was like ‘Oh bugger it, I’m just going to walk down the street without my mask on and enjoy the sunshine.

M: Yep, yep.

P: But only in that one moment.

M: Yep. And everyone is getting to that point now.

P: Mmm.

M: To varying degrees, we’re just over it, just over it.

P: Yeah.

M: So, what that means for how far you’re willing to break the rules probably comes down to whether you’re naturally a rule breaker or whether you believe in rules? I imagine, if you’re a big bang theory person –

P: Laughter!

M: – Sheldon would still be wearing his mask, laugh.

P: He would be doing virtual presence.

M & P: Laugh!

M: Mmm hmm. So, what all this means is, we’ve spoken before about the difference between flourishing and languishing. And when we’re flourishing, we’re at our peak mental health. We’re not simply living life, but we’re loving life.

P: Yep.

M: What we’re talking about here is that a lot of us are coming from the top end where you find passion, energy, excitement, love, awe and hope.

P: Mmm.

M: And we’re moving into this languishing space, which is not the negative mental health space. It’s not depression, anxiety and a place where you really should be seeking professional help.

P: Yep.

M: It’s really well summed up as just ‘meh.’

P: Bleurgh. Yeah, right. Does that affect the people who are more used to being in that upper space a little bit more?

M: You would probably notice a difference more, but this is a phenomenon we’ve spoken about before, and I think Episode 70 we’ve talked about from languishing to flourishing.

P: Yes.

M: And so if you’re normally a ten on the scale or a nine and you’re now sitting at a six, that ‘meh’, you know, you’re not in the under five space where you really need to take action and there are serious consequences for not.

P: Yep.

M: You’re not in the ill health space.

P: Mmm hmm.

M: You’re just kind of going through the motions of life. You know, what a waste of your life in that space for too long.

P: Laugh, yeah. And that’s where the techniques that we talk about, I think can come in really, really advantageously. The first one that comes to mind for me is the physicality shaking off literally do a Tay Tay [Taylor Swift].

M: Laugh!

P: Go out running, running out into the world half naked, for example and just go “Aaaahh!!’

M: Legally.

P: Yeah, completely legally, where a sarong, do something crazy, wear a crazy hat put a wig on. Do something that’s going to shake yourself up physically and that’s enough sometimes to flip that switch and get just that little bit out of languishing I feel.

M: Yep, absolutely. So, let’s go into what we can do.

P: Oh, I did it again, didn’t I? Laugh.

M: How can you take action?

P: [whispers] I’ll go sit in my corner now.

M: Well, no. We’re in this section now.

P: Oh good! I’ll get out of my corner now, laugh.

M: So, the first step is to be aware. And just by listening to this podcast, you are at least starting to think about whether or not you’re struggling.

P: Yeah.

M: Whether you’re losing focus or energy. So, now that you are a little bit more aware of the dangers of Covid burnout. It’s a great idea to take a little bit of time to see whether the signs apply to you and look at how you’re tracking.

P: Mmm.

M: Secondly, as we said before, if you’re feeling overwhelmed or unable to move forward, or if you have dropped into that mental ill health. So, if your anxiety levels are too high for you to manage or you think you’ve moved into depression, seek professional help.

P: Yes.

M: And then thirdly, I’m gonna say, work out. So, if you find you’ve been languishing, you might need a mental fitness plan to build up your mental strength.

P: Yeah.

M: And this is where Tay Tay comes in, Pete.

P: Laugh, yeah.

M: And many of the other things, I think for me the one thing that can really help to turn things around here is, book a holiday.

P: Yeah, and planning for the holiday is often enough to actually shake that, shake off those blues.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: It gives you focus. It gives you a goal to work towards. It’s got so many positives in it, and a holiday doesn’t have to be overseas, it can be up the coast for an hour.

M: Yep, absolutely. Not only that, but research also shows that planning future travel boosts mood and mindset. But also, when you do get there, get out and get some sun and do some walking and see nature. All of those things that we have talked about that bring positive mental impacts.

P: Yeah.

M: So, the next thing that I would recommend is, why not start taking a daily walk? Get outside regularly.

P: Mmm.

M: You can add, 10 minutes only. If you’ve only got 10 minutes.

P: Mmm.

M: Really good way to turn your mental health around and to start building that mental fitness.

P: And it’s good for your brain. The physical activity has so many benefits for brain activity and accessing positive emotions.

M: Yep, do you have any more recommendations? I’ve got one more before we wrap up.

P: I still think running around in a sarong this with the crazy wig on does it for me.

M: Laugh. Wig, ooh.

P: Yeah, I put a wig on. I’ve got a unicorn hat that I could use.

M: Laugh, I wonder who bought you that!

P: Laughter!

M: All right, well, lastly, then one that we don’t talk about enough, but which is so powerful is to practise love and kindness.

P: [soft sigh] Aahhh.

M: Yeah, so research shows that helping others through acts of charity or volunteer work can make you feel better and happier.

P: Mmm.

M: But more recent research finds that simply wishing someone well can have a similarly positive effect on our moods. So, really easy task for you to take from today is if you just kind of feeling a bit ‘meh’, put into your diary once a week to send a note, could be a text message, it could be an email, or you could pick up the phone and send someone a note to wish them well and let them know you’re thinking about them.

P: Mmm, I’ve got a good one for that too. Make a cake.

M: I love it.

P: Give it to your neighbours.

M: There’s two things there. So, the mindfulness of baking, which is a whole other episode.

P: Laugh. I think we just came up with another episode title.

M: And then giving it away as well and doing something nice for others.

P: Yep, and it doesn’t need to be the next-door neighbour, it can be the old lady down the street constantly telling you to put your bin inside the garage.

M: Tsk, tsk, tsk. Pete.

P: Laugh. Take her a few muffins. No, she likes me because I cleaned up the back alley garden.

M: Aww.

P: Jennifer, I know you’re not listening, but I love you.

M: Aww.

P: She has been my neighbour for 12 years.

M: Alright.

P: And now she talks to me all the time, laugh.

M: So, on that note, we might finish up for this week and hopefully, you are not feeling the effects of Covid burnout. But if so, hopefully you can take some ideas to help move you forward and take you from languishing back up to flourishing.

P: Oh! I want to do a pirouette.

M: But we won’t, so good night, laugh.

P: [whispers] I’ll go back in my corner.

M: We’re not doing TV, Pete.

P: Oh, damnit. Laugh! Have a happy week.

M: Let’s just say you did.

P & M: Laugh.

P: Bye.

[Happy exit music – background] 

M: Thanks for joining us today if you want to hear more, please remember to subscribe and like this podcast and remember you can find us at www.marieskelton.com, where you can also send in questions or propose a topic. 

P: And if you like our little show, we would absolutely love for you to leave a comment or rating to help us out. 

M: Until next time. 

M & P: Choose happiness.  

[Exit music fadeout] 

Please note that I get a small commission if you buy something from my site. Your support helps to keep this site going at no additional cost to you. Thanks! 

Work-Life Balance and The Great Resignation (E91)

by

Happiness for Cynics

This week, Marie and Pete talk about ‘The Great Resignation’ and how many people are looking for a better, more fulfilling work-life balance.

Show notes

Article in THE CONVERSATION on Work-Life Balance by Lis Ku, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, De Montfort University  

Work-life balance: what really makes us happy might surprise you

Transcript

[Happy intro music -background] 

M: Welcome to happiness for cynics and thanks for joining us as we explore all the things I wish I’d known earlier in life but didn’t.  

P: This podcast is about how to live the good life. Whether we’re talking about a new study or the latest news or eastern philosophy, our show is all about discovering what makes people happy.  

M: So, if you’re like me and you want more out of life, listen in and more importantly, buy in because I guarantee if you do, the science of happiness can change your life.  

P: Plus, sometimes I think we’re kind of funny. 

[Intro music fadeout] 

P: And we’re back.

M: And we’re back. How’s it going?

P: Oh, very well. Very well, you know, it’s a lovely spring stormy weather in October in Sydney and we’ve had thunderstorms and rain and all sorts of interesting things going on. But we are, we are out and about here in Sydney.

M: Freedom!

P: Laughter, which is lovely, even though I haven’t changed a single thing yet. I haven’t had a coffee in a cafe yet or anything like that.

M: Me neither.

P: But I can if I choose.

M: But it’s been horrible weather this week.

P: Laugh.

M: You know that photo at the end of World War two of the soldier kissing the young lady in the streets as everyone celebrates freedom.

P: Yeah, yep.

M: That has been top of mind this week for me. I feel like we’re celebrating the end of a war or some horrible period in our lives.

P: Interesting, laugh.

M: And ironically, I’ve done nothing different this week. I’ve worked from home.

P: Laugh.

M: We did have dinner, though. Last night, actually.

P: We did. We had more than five people in the house, which felt lovely because it was a birthday. Happy birthday, Michael.

M: Happy birthday Michael. But aside from that, not really much has changed, laugh.

P: Well, I was walking around the streets near my work on Monday, which was our first day of release here in Sydney, and it did feel odd. There were tables on the streets again. Everything was open.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: Oddly, the second hand clothing store was busy as anything –

M: Laugh.

P: – which I thought was hilarious, laugh.

M: ‘Cause everyone’s put on the covid 10 [pounds], laugh.

P: Laugh, yes. But it was, it was almost a surreal feeling of going, ‘Oh, that’s right. This was –

M: Normal.

P: What was normal before and there was a real… There was a happiness, dare I say it pun intended, and walking out of work that night and seeing people in the pub sitting around having a glass of wine and seeing separate groups of people sitting.

M: Seeing crowds.

P: Yeah.

M: I went to the shops the other day and I felt a bit claustrophobic or crowded.

P: Laugh.

M: You know? It feels… there’s a real lightness and party and volume of people out.

P: Which is great when you’ve had a period of denial. It’s the lovely release afterwards. It’s like, Yeah, we can do whatever we want! Well, within reason.

M: We’ll see. We’ll see if pay for this freedom.

P: Laugh.

M: But it is, it is wonderful to be feeling this finally in Australia.

P: Yeah.

M: We are lagging many other countries from that point of view, but overall have really managed covid quite well from a illness and death perspective.

P: Yes, we’re very fortunate here.

M: So that’s, that’s the price that we’ve paid, I think.

P: Yeah, definitely. But on another note, congratulations are in order.

M: Aww… Shucks 😊

P: I am sitting here in the presence of a certified Happiness Trainer, laugh!

M: Happiness practitioner, thank you. Laugh!

P: Happiness Practitioner. I’m sorry, let’s get the title right. This week Marie finished her course. Her first course happiness.

M: Not my first. I’ve done a range of other little bits and bobs, but this was a full year course.

P: This was a big one, wasn’t it?

M: Yeah, this was a big one. And now I’m… you know, life is too short, I have too many pipe dreams and I don’t know which one I’m gonna… you know, pursue next. But in my mind is how can I open a Sydney Happiness Centre?

P: Laugh, I’d love to see what a happiness centre looks like. Just fluffy things to fall on lots of furs and you know, tactile –

M: Well, happiness is subjective, isn’t it?

P: Oh, yes.

M: So, it would be a very flexible space with a lot of diversity and activities. Anyway, we are four minutes in –

P: Laugh.

M: – and have a great topic to talk about something that I’ve been watching really closely. We’re talking about work-life balance and the great resignation. And we are looking at this because of a great article on the conversation by a senior lecturer in psychology at De Montfort University, Lis Ku. And she’s had a look at how our expectations, work-life balance, have evolved over covid.

P: Mmm hmm.

M: And all of us, in Corporate world in particular, anyone who’s on linked-in with any frequency would have seen that there is this phenomenon around the world that Corporates are watching, which is called the Great Resignation.

P: Sounds like the Great Depression or something like that.

M: It is.

P: Is it a global movement?

M: Absolutely.

P: Oh, wow.

M: Australia is lagging a little bit because we’ve only just started opening up and we’re only starting to find a new normal. Whereas in the UK, they locked down, I think, in 2020 and never went back, laugh.

P: Yeah.

M: The US did a similar sort of thing. They’ve been fully open for a while now, and what all these large Corporates are finding is that people are sick of them.

P: Laugh.

M: Sick of it, done.

P: I’m done. I’m leaving. I’m leaving the building. I’m taking my ball and going home, laugh.

M: Yeah, exactly.

P: Laugh.

M: And to the point that – generally, when people quit their jobs, they would have lined up something else.

P: Ok.

M: But people are so annoyed or over it, or they’ve had this pent-up, you know, dissatisfaction with their employer for the last 18 months and haven’t been sure about the economy and have stayed longer than they normally would have.

P: Ok.

M: And they’re so frustrated now that they’re leaving without even having another job lined up.

P: Mmm.

M: And that’s the unusual part here.

P: Is that in part due to the fact that there’s been a shakeup of priorities and there’s been a change in what we value?

M: Yes! Yes!

P: Due to the pandemic.

M: We want more and women in particular want equity if we’re going to take a larger role at home. I want to work from home and not have to commute two hours so that I can put the load of laundry on.

P: Mmm, yeah.

M: And I can’t cook a healthy meal for my family, for instance. Now, I’m not going to make this about gender.

P: Laugh.

M: Get back off my soapbox.

P: Laugh.

M: But what working from home has allowed many people to do is better balance their own personal needs.

P: I couldn’t agree more, I’ve noticed it in health. We have been flat chat, and I’m not just talking about myself. I’m talking about every health professional that I know has been super busy because people can manage their days better and they’re much more flexible so they can come in for the three o’clock appointment –

M: Mmm hmm.

P:  – and be able to see their Chiro, Dr or Physio or Massage Therapist, because they have that flexibility and that ability to stack their day out.

M: Yep.

P: And I think that’s –

M: And why would we give that up?

P: Well, I don’t think we should. The Scandinavians have been proving this since the year 2000.

M: So, someone needs to tell the CEOs.

P: Laugh, really?

M: Really… The Tech industry CEOs have cottoned on.

P: Oh, really.

M: A lot of them have said, ‘we’re actually going to get rid of our office’, and unfortunately, that is not going to serve the needs of the extroverts who have been craving more team time.

P: Contact, yes.

M: Yes.

P: And people time.

M: So that’s one extreme. The other extreme is organisations that are led often by extroverts who have been craving that team time and missing the communication and the incidental discussions and conversations and ideas and innovation that happens when –

P: Around the water cooler.

M: Yep. And so, they’ve decided that everyone needs to come back in for five days a week, as we used to do, starting Monday. See you all then.

P: Laugh. But that’s a little bit unrealistic in this new climate, isn’t it?

M: You would think so. These people run large corporations –

P: Laughter!

M: – and they haven’t cottoned on to it yet despite ‘The Great Resignation’. And people are leaving in droves. So, you’ve got those people who are keen to come back into the office and even the extroverts – often the stats are showing – don’t want to come back in five days a week.

P: No, that’s what I’m hearing. Everybody wants a 2-to-3-day split.

M: Yep. And then you’ve got those who just don’t want to come back into the office.

P: Laugh!

M: They’ve been more productive.

P: Yes!

M: So, this big experiment that we went through has shown that people are more productive when they work from home than they were in the office because they get in and they do their work. They’re not having those water cooler conversations.

P: Mmm.

M: So, the work may not be as good a quality, but they’re pumping through it faster. So, there is a trade-off for both things, right?

P: Oh, ok.

M: They’re getting more done and they’re sick of their leaders telling them, ‘It’s good for you to come in.’ For a lot of people –

P: It’s not.

M: Well, I’m one of them. I’ve had better mental health during Covid than I did before because I’ve got two hours back a day.

P: Yes, and that’s a lot of time.

M: It is.

P: I’m acutely aware of having 15 minutes to myself with my schedule.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: And an hour, an hour goes quickly. But when you’ve got that extra hour, there’s so much that you can actually achieve.

M: And I’ve got a heavily scheduled week and giving two hours back a day.

P: That’s huge.

M: Yep, it means a lot of things that I do for my well-being, I will no longer be able to do.

P: Mmm.

M: That’s what it means to me when someone says, ‘come back into the office and it will be good for your well-being.’

P: Sarcastic laugh.

M: Weellll….

P: Laugh. So, what is the balance between the Great Resignation and what it’s, what it’s done for our work-life expectations?

M: So, our expectations have changed, and I think that we’re now we’re entering a period of our human history where individuals and equity are a much more palatable conversation.

P: Mmm.

M: So, people are voting with their feet, just like they are voting with their money. When it comes to corporations that don’t follow the expectations that we have of them.

P: Yep, or investments, or all those sorts of financial decisions that used to be all that you go with the safe option now it’s like no, I go with the ahh… what’s the word I’m after?

M: The ethical option.

P: Yeah, that’s it.

M: Yeah. So, just like people are using their spending money to influence change. The Great Resignation is people walking from these companies to others that are willing to offer them five days a week from home if that’s what they want, or two days a week in the office, not five, or an organisation that will treat them well like a human being –

P: Laugh.

M: – during the most significant period of upheaval and change that a lot of people will face in their entire lives.

P: Yeah.

M: So, there’s two things going on here. There’s the change in expectations and the mismatch between what some organisations are expecting people to go back to and what people actually want.

P: Mmm.

M: There’s also a backlash against those organisations that didn’t manage the change well during Covid.

P: Mmm.

M: So, a lot of people are just fed up with the big machine of these Corporates and being treated like a number and not having good management or good bosses and good team environments. All of those things that make up what we would normally call employee engagement.

P: Right.

M: But really, no one wakes up and says, ‘I’m really hoping to be engaged at work today.’

P: Laughter! Well…

M: No one does that, but what they do do, and what I’ve done is, ‘you know what? I’m really not happy here. I’m going to go to another employer. I’m going to start looking for another job.’

P: The concept in this article that I find interesting, is that people are packing up and leaving without the option of another job to go to. That speaks a lot to that there’s been a… This happens when we have great events in society and history. This happened at the end of the World War, Great Depression, even fiscal crises. People make, not rash decisions, but they’re more inclined to make riskier decisions. Would that be fair to say?

M: You’d have to wait for a bit for a rebound out the back of those because of your economy. So, people feeling… What people are feeling right now is a certain level of confidence in their economies that there will be another job out there.

P: Right, ok.

M: And that safety net is there. That means they can take that risky move.

P: Is it just an economical perspective, or is it a ‘We’ve gone through… We’ve had our parameters change, we’ve had our thought processes changed about what’s important and what’s valuable. I haven’t got something to go to, but I’m going to make the jump and create it or create the opportunity.’

M: ‘I’m going to make the jump, and I trust there will be something there because the economy hasn’t tanked.’

P: Mmm.

M: I think if the economy had tanked, people would continue and that’s why they didn’t move for 18 months, right?

P: Yeah.

M: Because they were waiting to see whether you know you don’t want to start a new job. First one in, first one out, rule. Right?

P: Yes.

M: So, there is a little bit of that play into this, but you’re absolutely right, historically, traditionally, most people prefer to line up another job before they quit their current job.

P: Yep. And that’s not happening.

M: And we’re not seeing that.

P: Yeah, interesting.

M: Sorry, with a larger proportion of people, we’re not seeing that.

P: I like it. I’m a bit of a chaos believer and dive in the deep end.

M: Laugh!

P: So, I like it. This is my comfort space. I’ll just pack up everything and move to London without a job and, you know, I’ll figure it out when I get there, laugh.

M: I’m definitely an optimist when it comes to that uncertainty, however, I am also a planner.

P: Mmm.

M: So, I would… Again, it would depend how fed up I am.

P: Yeah, right.

M: And I’m not currently fed up, so if I was looking for another job. I’d probably wait to find it before I quit my current one.

P: Ok.

M: But there are many people out there who are so dissatisfied with the work life balance and also the virtual office environment that they’ve or physical office environment that they’ve been in for the last 18 months –

P: And they’ve chosen to opt out.

M: – they’re just walking, yep.

P: Let’s speak to the other part of the article, which actually talks about balancing our leisure time and our work time and that, that kind of idea that all you want to do is walk on the beach all day. Does that actually bring about true happiness for us Marie?

M: I love where this article goes, and we’ll post a link to it. But this is what is discussed further on, is work life a tension that we shouldn’t have it all?

P: Mmm.

M: Right, so Lis talks about how there have been studies in which people look at whether or not people would prefer to not work at all.

P: Yes.

M: And there’s also just moments in life where you don’t work at all. So, if you’ve been made redundant, if you retire, there’s been lots of work with people who have won the Lotto and don’t need to work.

P: Yes, yes.

M: And time and time again, these studies show that people get less life satisfaction. Your ego takes a hit. Your sense of self-worth takes a hit if you don’t work.

P: Mmm.

M: So, you really do need work to contribute to your happiness.

P: I think this goes back to a conversation in one of the episodes we’ve talked before about having purpose and meaning.

M: Mmm hmm

P: And also I’m going to throw the word passion in there.

M: Yes.

P: I think the people that negotiate these changes and you’re… you can speak to this with a lot more authority than I can Marie. But people who go through retiring, winning the lottery, for example, if they find a passion that they can invest their time and energy into that, gives them purpose.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: That makes them wake up in the morning going ‘right, I’ve got this to do today’, and it gives them a certain amount of structure that leads to greater life satisfaction ergo happiness.

M: Absolutely. There are so many studies that show having purpose not necessarily having work is important.

P: Mmm.

M: Contributing and being a part of something bigger than yourself, serving others. There are so many different ways that you can bring that to life.

P: Mmm.

M: Or, you know, working for a pay check where you feel pride for the contribution that you make towards whatever it is your organisation does or your company or you know, you’re whatever work it is you do.

P: Yeah.

M: That has such a big impact on our well-being and also contributes a large part to our identity, particularly in Western society.

P: Yeah, pretty much.

M: So, America, Australia, England. You ask –

P: You are you’re job. ‘What do you do for work?’

M: Exactly. So, without that, we lose not only, you know, the well-being part of that we lose part of our identity and then part of the pride that comes with being able to answer that question well.

P: Mmm.

M: “What do you do?”

“I’m unemployed.”

P: Laugh.

M: Comes with a sense of shame in our society.

P: Yes, yes, definitely.

M: Back to your question about work-life and the false-tension that we’re implying by putting that dash between those two words.

P: Yes.

M: There’s another study that talks about how much free time is a good amount of time. So, when we talk about work life, the thing that we’re often complaining about is that work takes up too much time and we don’t have time to do all the other things we want to do.

P: Yes. ‘I just want to read a book all day.’

M: Yeah, I want to read a book, I want to see my friends, I want to travel the world, I want to go play sports. I want to, you know, if have had more time I’d go to the gym.

P: Laugh!

M: Uh huh… No, you wouldn’t let’s be really, really frank here Marie.

P: Laugh.

M: I can’t remember the last time you got off your ass and went to the gym.

P: Laugh.

M: So, we… But we think and we convince ourselves that if we just had more work-life balance. In other words, if we worked a five-hour day or if we work three days a week, not five days a week or, you know, skin a cat however you want. But what the studies show is that there is such a thing as too much free time.

P: Mmm, I like this idea.

M: Mmm hmm. And anywhere more than five hours of free time in a day starts to impact on your well-being.

P: Yep.

M: And that is, you know, an eight-hour workday and five hours on either side and a good night’s sleep. That’s pretty much meaning that if you work a 40-hour week, that’s where your optimum work level should sit.

P: Yeah.

M: I don’t think I believe it.

P: Laugh, really? I kind of do.

M: It’s the science though sometimes Pete.

P: See I wasn’t looking from the scientific perspective at all. I’m looking at it from my own experience. I know I’m happier when I am busy and doing things, so when you’ve got things to sink your teeth into, it’s like I can’t wait to get home. And even with my study.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: It’s like sometimes I’m really keen to get home and open the anatomy books and go, Yeah, I’m enjoying this. I’m enjoying engaging with this content.

M: So, I think that’s where I’m struggling in that I have so many side projects.

P: Laugh, yeah you do.

M: So many side projects that give me that same sense of well-being and passion and purpose and meaning and identity that sit on top of my 40-hour day job. So maybe I’m in a different situation here, yeah.

P: So, Lis Ku talks about the idea of eudaimonic happiness.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: And the definition that she gives is that this is derived from optimal functioning and realising our potential.

M: So that’s one way that you can fill your week, I think.

P: She does give a couple of… there’s three different types of happiness that she talks about.

M: Yeah and there’s a study that she references, which aligns nicely to a topic we discussed, The Psychologically Rich Life, a few episodes ago.

P: Yes.

M: So, in this study, they say, across nine countries and tens of thousands of participants, researchers found that most people, so, over 50% are still unfortunately aiming towards a happy life typified by hedonic happiness.

P: Mmm.

M: So that’s that treadmill we were talking about.

P: Yeah, yeah.

M: Bigger house, bigger car, etc.

P: Getting, getting the goals instead of a [meaningful life].

M: Mmm hmm. And that shows that little podcast here is not reaching enough people.

P: Laugh!

M: Right?

P: Yet. Yet!

M: Yet, laugh. The second is that about a quarter prefer a meaningful life embodied by eudaimonic happiness, that you just mentioned. And that’s meaning and purpose and all of the good things that we talk about. And then there’s the third group of people. So, about 10 to 15% in each country who choose to pursue a rich and diverse experiential life.

P: I’m so in that category.

M: Well, I kind of think two and three are sort of mixed in for me. I think they’re both just as important.

P: I think there’s a difference. I think there’s a very chaotic, throw caution to the wind attitude in that last experiential category that doesn’t exist necessarily in the eudaimonic happiness one.

M: Ok. Well, I want both. I want my cake and I want to eat it too.

P: Laugh. Well, you can have both.

M: And you know what? I’m happy with a bit of hedonism thrown in.

P: Laugh! I get into my car and I always say, ‘Good morning, gorgeous, it is so nice to sit in you.’

M: Aww.

P: Laugh. That was actually my surviving mechanism for covid in my five-minute commute to work for 2.5 kilometres, driving with the top down, I was in a happy space.

M: So, I think that that balanced with your studies, balanced with your work, balanced with all of these different things. So having a little bit of hedonistic happiness in there as well as a meaningful life and also that experiential life and having the balance across all of that and work can play in all three of those spaces at different times.

P: Very true. It can give the passion to drive a little bit in there.

M: Yep, work can feature in all three. That is work-life balance.

P: What a lovely way to finish the episode, from our accredited Happiness Practitioner.

M & P: Laughter!

M: All right, well on that note, wishing you all a happy week and we’ll see you next time.

P: Chow, chow.

[Happy exit music – background] 

M: Thanks for joining us today if you want to hear more, please remember to subscribe and like this podcast and remember you can find us at www.marieskelton.com, where you can also send in questions or propose a topic. 

P: And if you like our little show, we would absolutely love for you to leave a comment or rating to help us out. 

M: Until next time. 

M & P: Choose happiness.

[Exit music fadeout] 

Please note that I get a small commission if you buy something from my site. Your support helps to keep this site going at no additional cost to you. Thanks! 

Creating Your “To Be” List (E90)

by

Happiness for Cynics podcast

This week, Marie and Pete talk about self-awareness and “To Be” lists, what they are and why you need to create one.

Show notes

Character Strengths

Click on the following link to do a free online survey to find out what your strengths are and how they can help you. VIA strengths assessment 

How to know what you want to change or reinforce? 

Ask yourself the question, On your deathbed, what would you regret? Or what would you change?

Create Your “To Be” List

Think about and then write down five values or attributes that you would like to incorporate into your life. These can be things that you already excel at or just wish to improve. Whatever they are focus on your emotional growth. This is my (Marie) to do list to show as an example.

  1. Kind and caring 
  1. Fun and happy (bring joy to others) 
  1. Accepting and non-judgmental 
  1. Honest 
  1. Present 

Use reminders to make positive change. Creating a “to be” list is about giving yourself a reminder for things that aren’t part of who you are. When they become second nature, you can remove the daily reminders.

Transcript

Creating You “To Be” List (E90) 

[Happy intro music -background] 

M: Welcome to happiness for cynics and thanks for joining us as we explore all the things I wish I’d known earlier in life but didn’t.  

P: This podcast is about how to live the good life. Whether we’re talking about a new study or the latest news or eastern philosophy, our show is all about discovering what makes people happy.  

M: So, if you’re like me and you want more out of life, listen in and more importantly, buy in because I guarantee if you do, the science of happiness can change your life.  

P: Plus, sometimes I think we’re kind of funny. 

[Intro music fadeout] 

M: Hey, hey!

P: How are you, Muz?

M: I’m good. How are you?

P: I am happy this week because someone’s coming back to Sydney.

M: Oh, I am.

P: My best friend is coming back to Sydney.

M: Yay! That’s me!

P: Yeah, it’s all about you, laugh!

M: And we’re in the same five k (km) zone.

P: Ah.

M: So, we can picnic as much as we want.

P: Laugh.

M: So, what are we talking about today?

P: Ooh, we are talking about [Shakespearian accent] “To be or not to be. That is the question.” Let’s make a “To Be” List!

M: So, we will get into “To Be” lists in a second. But really, what we’re talking about is improving your own emotional intelligence checking in with yourself.

P: Mmm.

M: All of the soppy, 21st century,

P: Laugh.

M: BS.

P: Laugh, the stuff that you turned your back on before you visited all this happiness bullshit.

M: [The stuff] that is so important for an open and happy life.

P: The tools, the tools that actually help you to be happier.

M: Absolutely.

P: Which we talk about a lot.

M: We do talk about how to be happy a lot.

P: Mmm.

M: It’s kind of the reason we exist, isn’t it?

P: Laugh, I guess so.

M: Not existentially.

P: Laugh.

M: Although, I would argue that maybe we do exist to be happy, that’s a whole other season.

P: That’s a nice thought. I liked that thought. We should exist to be happy. We shouldn’t be. Yes, we shouldn’t be toiling and working away at things that don’t improve our level of enjoyment of life. Why bother? Laugh.

M: I’m with you. Mm.

P: One of the sort of roundabouts that we came to in discussing today’s episode was the value of self-awareness.

M: Oh.

P: Now, if we throw back Marie to when you were pre-Happiness for Cynics.

M: Pre-accident.

P: Laugh, pre-accident. If I said to you, pre-accident, I had said to you, “self-awareness.” What would that have meant to you? If you can cast your mind back to being that cynical person?

M: … Idiots who have no idea of what they, you know, the havoc they wreak at work.

P: Laugh.

M: Or the impact they have on people around them. Very low opinion of people with no self-awareness. But what’s funny now that I’ve grown more mature.

P: Laugh.

M: Aged, we’ll say, and have more experience is that there’s a lot of high functioning people out there with no understanding of their own self, and a lot of them work in the finance industry, I’ve come to realise.

P: Ahh, ok right.

M: Laugh.

P: Your industry?

M: My industry.

P & M: Laugh.

M: Yes, a lot of people with big egos and really to switch is neutral and angry.

P: Interesting, yeah. Do you think those people are aware of their happiness and aware of their access being content and happiness?

M: I think these are the people who are on that hedonic treadmill that we’ve talked about, right?

P: Yep.

M: They’re the ones who get their happiness from the positive affect in their life. So, when they get the promotion, when they get the bigger house, they compare themselves to others quite often.

P: Yep.

M: And they look at their success in comparison to those around them in their friendship circles and in their neighbourhoods. And if they’re doing well on that front, then they believe they are happy. But as you and I both know, that type of happiness is only ever a short lived and then you’re striving for the next thing.

P: Yes.

M: And so, I think they spend a lot of their times on that treadmill there. They’re the rat in the rat race running around in circles just for that one moment where they get the promotion, and they go out to dinner and pop a bottle of champagne.

P: Yep, yep.

M: And they would argue that their lives better.

P: Mmm.

M: Than your life or my life because they’re got more.

P: Yes.

M: They’ve got more success; they’ve got more recognition.

P: Laugh!

M: They’ve got more, more, more.

P: I’m going to quote Cruella Deville here “You fools, you idiots, you imbeciles!”

M: Laugh! And that was where I was stuck pre-accident, right? And I was doing well. I was being successful at life, which is what I was told mattered. And, boy is it a 180 when… and I feel like I’ve joined the hippies.

P: Laugh!

M: I really do.

P: [Singing] “Let, the sunshine!” You’ve got roses in your hair and you’re running around naked with a sarong. Oh, I’m sorry, that’s me.

M & P: Laugh.

P: Interestingly enough, I come from the other side of the perspective with my new chosen career path that I’m going down and we’ve actually been doing a lot of technical study in one of my units at uni on self-awareness and the value of self-awareness as a health professional and that whole concept of being self-aware so that you can better inform or better deal with others.

M: Mmm.

P: And being in, in the non-finance industry, which is probably a complete flip. In the health care industry where you are there to trying to take care of other people and make other people feel better. There’s a lot of research that supports the placebo effect and that sometimes it is not about the physical intervention of what you’re doing to the person’s body. It’s actually about being a nice person to them and making them feel better. That actually has a lot of value in terms of making someone feel better about an illness or a disease or their situation.

M: Or in convincing them to take action.

P: Yes, oh yes, we’re going to come to that one.

M: And I will absolutely say that it might not be immediately apparent. But the finance industry needs this just as much as the health care industry.

P: Hmm?

M: So, insurance, where I am right now, people are calling up and they’ve just had their house burned down, with their pets inside.

P: Yeah…

M: Or they’ve had a car accident and they don’t know how they’re going to support their family for the next three months because they’re in retail and they’ve broken their leg.

P: Yep.

M: Or, you know, on and on and on and on. And an ability for someone to answer a phone and to behave… like a human being, laugh.

P: Laugh.

M: With empathy and care.

P: Yes.

M: It is so important. And similarly with banks where oftentimes, when things are going good, you don’t call your bank. You call when things are going wrong, you know? When you’ve lost your job, when you can’t make a payment, etcetera, etcetera.

P: Yeah.

M: Again, just so important for people to be able to have enough self-awareness that they’re not carrying all of their baggage into every conversation that they have in life, whether it’s at work or with people around them.

P: Mmm. One of the direct quotes that I’ve got here from one of the texts that I’ve got from a tool is that “self-awareness increases self-understanding to the point of being able to control your emotions, thoughts and behaviours.”

M: Yep.

P: You can look at all these finance people who are walking into meetings or conferences, and if you just come out of a really stressful interaction or a really aggressive confrontation, how to get control of those emotions. How to find that still point where you actually can control yourself to enter each new conversation at a base level.

M: Or more to the point when I’m having a tense, angry conversation with someone, I know that they’re getting angry because of their baggage, and it has nothing to do with me.

P: Yes.

M: So, I don’t need to escalate.

P: Yeah.

M: So, I need to be detached from their emotions and understand it’s got absolutely nothing to do with me. It happens really often, particularly in customer service. People come in angry.

P: Yep.

M: And so, just being able to understand others better.

P: Yeah, balance the demands of the interaction.

M: Yep.

P: Balancing everything from the perspective.

M: Yep.

P: Yep.

M: Martin Seligman is big on strengths and understanding your strengths and big [on] understanding yourself in order to be more emotionally aware and in order to open yourself up to happiness and be happy. We’ve spoken about before, you can go to the Penn State website and download for free the VIA Strengths Assessment, in order to better understand your own strengths so that you can double down on those the thinking used to be that you want to be well rounded in everything so you focus on your weaknesses in order to become better at them.

P: Yes, yeah.

M: Nah. It’s BS. Throw that out.

P: Laugh!

M: The thinking has evolved, double down on your strengths so that you can do things in which you can succeed easily and continue to make that part of what you do day in, day out. Who doesn’t want to succeed more often?

P: Absolutely. One of the ways of actually focusing on your strengths is assessing those strengths and asking the right questions of yourself.

M: Yes, the other day, poor Francis.

P: Laugh.

M: I am still studying with Happiness Studies Academy, which is amazing, and every week is just opening my mind to so much new thinking and what I do love about Tal-Ben Shahar is that he started his studies in philosophy. So, we get a real cross of psychology with philosophy and, you know, ancient thinkers and amazing texts to read.

P: Laugh.

M: But one of the things that he was talking about in last week’s class was, you know, on your death bed, what would you regret? Or what would you wish you’d done more or less of?

P: Oh, that’s a good question. Laugh.

M: So, I went running in and my husband was in the shower, and I was like, ‘Great, you’re trapped and have to talk.’

P: Laugh! You trapped him in the shower recess with his naked body so that he couldn’t leave. Laugh!

M: Exactly. I pulled the toilet seat down and sat down and went, ‘Okay, here we go.’

P: And he finally went, ‘Oh, dear, I’m stuck. I have to talk to her.’

M: Pretty much, laugh. You can picture it, can’t you?

P: I can actually, laugh!

M: So, you know, and again, it’s just a great exercise to ask yourself if you were on your deathbed tomorrow, what would you regret about your life? Or if regret is too strong a word? Because for me, I try to live a no regrets life, you learn, you don’t regret, and you learn that there are things that you don’t want to do ever again rather than you regret.

P: Ok.

M: So that’s personally just a mantra I live by.

P: Ok.

M: But there are things that I would change in my life. So, another way of asking that is on your deathbed, ‘what would you say you wish you’d done more or less of?’ So, for example, some of us might say I wish I had spent less time at work.

P: Yeah, yeah.

M: Or I wish I’d spent more time with my family or I wish I had spent less time stressing or worrying.

P: You mentioned that you were talking about before the episode Marie that this helps to clarify what’s important.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: And I think that that’s really vital. And again, this comes back to self-awareness and doing the work of being self-aware and doing some self-reflection time, so that you ask those important questions and really can clarify. So that when someone like you slams you in the shower –

M: Laughter!

P: – and they sit down on the toilet, they’re going ‘right Pete.’ You’ve got the answers, you know what’s going on and that consciousness and that awareness of those answers and questions, I think is really powerful, because when you’re faced with a choice, you have the tools ‘you’re like, well, I know that this matches with my values, so I’m going to go this route.’

M: And really, this is what it’s all about. So, we spoke ages ago about authenticity and the importance of authenticity. So, when your values and your behaviours and your actions and your thoughts all align, then you can live a happy life.

P: And that’s a lot of work.

M: It is.

P: Having those four elements, it’s tough.

M: And if you’re not checking in with your values and your thoughts and your behaviours on a regular basis, they change over time.

P: Exactly, yeah.

M: So you’ve got to keep going back to them and making sure they’re still valid. And the person I was when I was 20 is very different from the person I am now.

P: Mmm, mm, yeah.

M: But I wouldn’t I give yourself a must check in. I would highly recommend journaling. And for me, that’s been a real catalyst for better understanding myself. And you can do the one sentence journal.

P: Yep.

M: You know. Every day, ‘what have I learned about myself?’ One sentence. So, one of the great ways that we like to one of the great ways that I like to, or I have reflected on my life is with a “To Be” list.

P: Mmm.

M: So, it’s sitting on my whiteboard behind me,

P: Laugh.

M: which Pete can see and essentially a “To Be” list, is my daily reminder, because I come into this room every morning and I sit down to do my writing and then to do my work for the day. I sit down and I walk past my “To Be” list and this is a list of five things that I want to be.

P: Mmm.

M: So, when I asked myself, what would I wish I’d done more or less of on my deathbed? For me, the things that I wish I’d done more of is understand myself, when I was younger, pre-accident, my life is very much a pre-accident and post-accident.

P & M: Laugh!

M: Chapter one and chapter two kind of thing.

P: Yeah, yeah.

M: So, pre-accident I’d spent way too much time at work. I’ve spent way too much time trying to be perfect, being a perfectionist and worrying and stressing about things that weren’t perfect. And I’d spent way too much time trying to succeed. And I wish I’d spent more time understanding myself in order to be happier.

P: Mmm mm.

M: And my “To Be” list kind of extends on that. So, I’ll read through my five and then Pete, I’m going to put you on the spot.

P: Oh!

M: And ask you – calm down.

P & M: Laugh.

M: And this is, you know, another take on ‘you are what you eat.’

P: Oh yeah, I like that.

M: Or you put out into the world, and you behave in a way that you yourself focus on being. So, this is about setting up a reminder, you could put it on your desktop, or you could write it on your whiteboard like I did.

And it’s about reminding myself to make sure that I prioritise these things in my life that make me who I want to be. And when they become second nature, you can remove those reminders so you can set yourself up a calendar reminder or a phone alarm. Great way to just make sure you’re reminding yourself to ensure that that change happens.

P: Mmm.

M: So, my five are:

  • I want to be Kind and Caring.
  • I want to be Fun and Happy.
  • I want to be Accepting and Non-judgmental, and for me, this is really about slowing down.

M: I get busy and I don’t stop to put myself in other people’s shoes and then to understand the other person sitting across from me. I am, as I mentioned before, I tend to go towards perfectionism and stress, so being accepting and nonjudgmental and really stopping to listen.

  • Number four is Honest, and I have a really strong radar for right and wrong and fair. So that’s a value that I strongly believe in is honesty, and
  • Five is Present. and this is again an area that I think I have a lot more growth to experience. But I would like to be more present more often. And when I am, I notice my mental well-being is so much better.

M: So, this list is somewhat aspirational, somewhat already part of who I am, you know, and there are some gaps that are bigger maybe in others as far as reconciling who I want to be and who I am today.

P: I like the fact that it’s both reflective and prospective.

M: Yes, I fail at these quite often.

P & M: Laughter.

P: It’s the giving yourself permission to fail as well. And it’s there. And it’s the, the wonderful thing is to know when you have failed.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: I think that’s really, that’s being present. That’s really understanding that, ‘Oh, I didn’t do that very well or I could have done that better’, because next time when you’re faced with that situation, you may well just do it better, because you you’ve got that self-awareness enough and you’ve actually spent some time reflecting on ‘Ooh, was that the right way to approach that situation, or did I perform that well enough? Maybe I can increase this aspect.’

M: Mmm hmm.

P: And you won’t get that clarity unless you spent some time sitting with that uncomfortable [understanding] as we talked about before.

M: Yep. Absolutely. All right, so in the last few minutes, what would you have on your “To Be” list?

P: Oh. I’ve been madly scribbling here whilst you, uh, were talking, laugh.

M: Maybe you added something to your list, active listening. Laugh.

P: Oh, I got assist on that last week. I was fabulous! Laugh!

M: Ok! …

P: Laugh. All right. So, I’ve got four. I’ll have to come up with the fifth one, but first one is

  • Aware.

M: Aware?

P: Actually aware, being more aware of myself in space and others around my space. So that’s one that I think that I like and just stopping very quickly here and reflecting on what I just said about you, Marie, I’ve tried to include some retrospective and some prospective stuff in this.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: So, this next one you’re going to laugh at and this is definitely me when I was up until maybe age 30.

  • Less Dramatic.

M: Oh Why!?

P: Laugh! There’s a negative side to be dramatic. There’s a positive side, I will clarify that, but yeah, less inclined to jump to emotional conclusions.

M: Oh.

P: And I think this was me before I discovered this self-awareness and my study in Buddhism and the present being and then all that sort of compassion work. I was so inclined to jump down the throat of anyone that didn’t agree with my opinion or see the negative straight away. It was like instead of actually going, ‘Oh, what’s their perspectives?’ So that’s a really important one for me is curtailing my emotional responses.

M: I only ever get positive emotional responses from you I feel.

P: Oh, you’re so nice to me, oh my Lord. This is why I like you.

M & P: Laugh!

M: Because we feed each other’s egos.

P: We do. Exactly.

M: Laughter!

P: And this is why we’re fabulous.

  • My third one is Generous, generosity.

And again, I think that I fail at this sometimes in my, in my current state. Yeah, I’d like to be more generous. I’d like to. I like to do half a shit that I say I’m going to do.

M: Can I tell you about the last time I tried generous? I know we’re running over time, so I’ll make this quick. We were driving on a Sunday, and we passed an elderly gentleman coming up the hill on his bicycle and it was starting to rain.

P: Oh wow.

M: And I said to my husband, we should stop and offer him a lift. We’re in the ute. We could have thrown the bike in the back. Could have given him a lift. And he turned the corner, because we we’re turning the corner and he was like, ‘Really? Do you really mean that?’ and I was like, ‘Well, kind of yeah I do.’ And he was like, ‘well, should I turn around?’ and I was like, ‘Oh, well, now we’ve gone…’, like by this stage, we’ve gone further on, and I couldn’t actually then, like anyway, it ended up becoming an argument. Laugh!

P: Oh dear. Laugh! All from the good intentions of being generous. And the kind Samaritan.

M: Yes. Yeah. Anyway, that was me trying to be nice, but ah fail.

P: Oh well…

M: All right, what’s your last one?

P: My last one. Oh, I have to think of one… I would have to say.

M: Didn’t you say you had four?

P: I have four. But I don’t like this last one because I kind of covered in the last one about being generous.

M: Okay, we’ll leave it at three for today, because it did put you on the spot.

P: No, I’m going to give you this one,

  • Being Committed.

M: Laugh, I can commit you. That’s easy.

P: Laugh!

M: There’s a home down the road.

P: No thanks Muz. Being committed. So, committing to myself and committing to my own expectations, but also the expectations that I set for other people and that other people might sit for me. So, following through, following through.

M: Mmm.

P: I say something I want to follow through on it.

M: Mmm, I like it. And Forgive Yourself if you don’t.

P: That can be number five.

M: Laugh.

P: Thanks, Muz.

M: Alright. Well, on that note, I do hope that if you’re listening that you take these two activities. Actually, we snuck a second one in there. Even though the title of this is creating your “To Be” list, the second one in there is the exercise of what would you regret or wish you’d done more or less of on your deathbed? Really great little exercise to help you unpack, whether your life is where it should be and whether you’re spending time in the right places.

P: Yes.

M: And then this other one is to write yourself a “To Be” list. And not only that, but to set yourself a reminder. So put it somewhere visual, up on the wall or something, or put it into your phone. Once you’ve got it written down and set yourself an alarm or a calendar reminder.

P: Put it on the fridge.

M: There you go. All right. Well, have a happy week.

[Happy exit music – background] 

M: Thanks for joining us today if you want to hear more, please remember to subscribe and like this podcast and remember you can find us at www.marieskelton.com, where you can also send in questions or propose a topic. 

P: And if you like our little show, we would absolutely love for you to leave a comment or rating to help us out. 

M: Until next time. 

M & P: Choose happiness.  

[Exit music fadeout] 

Please note that I get a small commission if you buy something from my site. Your support helps to keep this site going at no additional cost to you. Thanks! 

Living a Psychologically Rich Life (E89)

by

Happiness for Cynics podcast

This week, Marie and Pete discuss what it means to be living a psychologically rich life and how to reach your potential.

Show notes

Measuring your Psychological Richness – according to University of Virginia psychologist Shigehiro Oishi and his team.

Just answer on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) and see how you go! What you do with your final score is up to you 🙂 

  • I have had a lot of novel experiences. 
  • My life has been full of unique, unusual experiences. 
  • My life consists of rich, intense moments. 
  • I experience a full range of emotions via first-hand experiences such as travel and attending concerts. 
  • I have a lot of personal stories to tell others. 
  • On my deathbed, I am likely to say ‘‘I had an interesting life.” 
  • On my deathbed, I am likely to say ‘‘I have seen and learned a lot.” 

Recommended book on monogamy in the 21st century

Mating in Captivity by Esther Perel

Transcript

[Happy intro music -background] 

M: Welcome to happiness for cynics and thanks for joining us as we explore all the things I wish I’d known earlier in life but didn’t.  

P: This podcast is about how to live the good life. Whether we’re talking about a new study or the latest news or eastern philosophy, our show is all about discovering what makes people happy.  

M: So, if you’re like me and you want more out of life, listen in and more importantly, buy in because I guarantee if you do, the science of happiness can change your life.  

P: Plus, sometimes I think we’re kind of funny. 

[Intro music fadeout] 

P: [Dame Edna voice] Hello darlings.

M: [English accent] Hello.

P: Laugh, we’ve gone English!

M: I’m not going to keep that up because I don’t feel like being vulnerable right now, laugh.

P: Oh, that’s not good, are you ok Muz?

M: Ahh… yeah. Just, just tired. Tired, which just makes everything, you know, that bit testier and yeah.

P: Yeah, resilience gets low when we’re tired.

M: Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. So, we were just talking about a lovely listener who wrote us a beautiful message. Her name’s Laura.

P: Hi, Laura. We love you, Laura. Thank you so much for your email. It was so lovely to hear from you.

M: And we’re dedicating this episode to Laura, who’s had a tough year. A lot of us have, but [she’s had] a particularly tough year. So, Laura is also a positive psychology fan and is working on her own podcast.

P: Yes!

M: Which she’s yet to launch.

P: Come on, Laura, you can do it!

M: Laugh.

P: Just jump in! Turn towards the tidal wave with open arms and dive in! Laugh.

M: Be vulnerable, do it!

P: Laugh.

M: We’ll be your first listeners.

P: Absolutely, absolutely. I love what she said in the email because she talks exactly about what we talk about here on the podcast, the interest in positivity and being creative and finding different ways of reframing and being vulnerable and… just hit that open button and just go for a Laura! Share it! Because that’s ultimately the best way to create more energy and to create more connections.

M: And who would have thought, Pete, that anyone would give two hoots about what we have to say?

P: Laugh! I know, hello?!

M: When we launched my Mum, your sister, my sister were our only listeners.

P: Laugh, yeah, yeah.

M: We do have some lovely, like good friends that we know of. But there are hundreds of people who tune in every week to listen to us have a chat, laugh.

P: Laugh. Crazy really!

M: It is.

P & M: Laughter!

M: We’re calling all our listeners crazy. That’s probably not smart marketing.

P: No, definitely not. We’re fabulous. We’re artists, we know that we’re fabulous.

M: Well, our listeners are fabulous.

P: Yeah, our listeners are fabulous. Out listeners are unicorn idealists, laugh!

M: Absolutely.

P: Laugh!

M: I actually saw a lovely quote, which said, you know, next time you think ‘oh, I can’t believe we’ve got to work from home’, remember that you have a home, and you have a job.

P: Very true. Very true. Miserable being must find more miserable being and then he’s happy.

M: … I have no idea what that means.

P: Laugh!

M: What did you say, a miserable being must find another miserable being and then he’s happy?

P: Look up, Lady and the Tramp, the Russian Wolfhound talking to the Tramp. You’ll get it, laugh!

M: All right. Thank you for that clarification. We all have our marching orders, laugh.

P: Laugh!

M: Me and our listeners, laugh.

P: The Lady and the Tramp 1947. Don’t quote me on that, laugh. [1955!] Anyway, moving on.

M: Moving on. What are we talking about today?

P: A psychologically rich life.

M: A psychologically rich life.

P: Mmm.

M: And I don’t think that anyone, in my entire… 21 years has ever said to me it’s important that you have a psychologically rich life.

P: I love this idea. I think it’s brilliant. It’s kind of, it is that thing of turning towards the world and going ‘Come at me. I’m ready!’ Laugh, bring on everything.

M: I think it’s a real… struggling for the right word, real example of how far we’ve come since we grew up, in the early 2000’s.

P: [Snort] Laugh! That’s being very generous!

M: Laugh, ok in the 21st century. When we grew up back then [late 1900’s] mental health and psychology were… I mean psychology was purely about fixing the ill, the mentally ill.

P: The seriously mentally ill, yeah.

M: I said purely – we do acknowledge that positive psychology was around at that time but really was in its infancy. And secondly, like no one talked about mental health.

P: Yes.

M: It was like death and taxes – not death and taxes, wrong thing.

P: Laugh.

M: Health and money. You never talk about it. Very English.

P: Not a conversation one brings up in polite society.

M: Mmm hmm, and nowadays it is on the front page.

P: Mmm.

M: Self-care is on the front page of every woman’s magazine. Men have magazines dedicated to mental health. You guys are lagging a little bit behind us women, we cottoned on a bit earlier, you know.

P: Yeah, you’re so much more emotional. Laugh!

M: Not only that but more in touch with our emotions. I would argue that men are just as emotional because anger is a very, very strong emotion.

P: You don’t, you don’t have to justify that. That was completely tongue in cheek. Let me qualify for our listeners, laugh. Uh, there’s this wonderful programme that I’ve been watching about Australian politics and the role of the female in Australian politics.

M: Yep.

P: And there’s this, there’s this whole point that they make about, that’s a line that is levelled at women when they are getting aggressive and they’re getting passionate. It’s like ‘Oh, stop being so emotional.’ I’m like what the?

M: Mmm hmm.

P: No, I’m not being emotional. I’m being direct. I’m being assertive.

M: Passionate.

P: Yes, exactly. And I’m all for the passion and displaying passion.

M: Oh, we know you’re all for passion.

P: [Fake offended voice] What are you saying? How dare you suggest such a thing.

M: Can’t tell you what I’m saying, it’s a PG show.  

P & M: Laughter.

M: Anyway, back to a psychologically rich life.

P: Yes, sorry. We digress.

M: Laugh, we digress. We tend to do that a lot.

P & M: Laughter.

M: So, this idea is very much driven by University of Virginia psychologist Shigehiro Oishi.

P: Well done.

M: Who defines happiness and well-being as a psychologically rich life. So, we talk about happiness and what is happiness, and Shigehiro, says happiness is about living a psychologically rich life, and that is a life that is characteristic by:

  • Variety,
  • Depth, and
  • Interest.

P: Mmm.

M: So, it’s about not being bored and about having novel experiences.

P: I like the use of the word novel because… it’s not about just the pleasant, fluffy stuff on top. It’s about everything. It’s having the lovely, beautiful, indulgent moments. But it’s also about some hard nuts of reflection.

M: Novel for me means things like chasing new experiences all the time and the one thing that makes me think, ‘Oh, I don’t know if I’m quite on board with this’ is what does that mean for monogamy?

P: Wow. Okay!

M: Laugh, we’re going there.

P: I’m strapping myself in, laugh.

M: And I think there’s some great feminist literature, and I’ll have to find the books and put it in the show notes. [see above]

M: Some great books out there that talk about monogamy in the 21st century and how there’s a pull between wanting novel, we search for novel things in life. We get bored quite easily as humans.

P: Yep.

M: Especially, you know, one year, two years, five, ten, twenty, thirty years in.

P: Yep.

M: You know, if you’ve been with someone, there’s not much you don’t know about them after about three years, you know, once that honeymoon period is over, right?

P: Sure.

M: And the reason we have that honeymoon period is because we’re finding out new things, right?

P: Mmm, mmm.

M: However, love relies on that depth of connection over time, the real deep love. So, if you always end your relationships when those honeymoon periods end then you’ll never get that true depth of connection.

P: Okay, I like the way you’re describing this. This is. Yeah, I’m with you.

M: So, I think for monogamy, you’re giving up on that novel-ness with that one person you spend the rest of your life with.

P: Mmm.

M: That’s what you’re agreeing to not have.

P: Hmm.

M: Open relationships, kind of is a new thing that a lot of, not only LGBTQ people are considering nowadays, but straight couples are now, you know, opening the doors to that.

P: Yep.

M: But I think novel experiences in the rest of your life, absolutely agree. That, to me, is psychological richness.

P: I agree. And they’re not always pleasant experiences either. It’s, it’s not always the, the fun and exciting stuff. Sometimes it’s the unpleasant, and it’s the difficult investigation that needs to actually come out.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: And I’ve got an article that I’ve referenced here from someone who also references Oishi. Which is by Scott Barry Kaufman. Interestingly enough, Laura mentioned Scott in her email to us.

M: Yep.

P: Laugh.

M: Small world, laugh.

P: Yeah, yeah, it was always meant to happen, laugh. But yes, Kaufman talks about the psychologically rich life as being:

  • Deep Emotions,
  • Diverse,
  • Novel – as you said,
  • Surprising, and
  • Interesting Experiences.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: Sometimes the experiences are pleasant. Sometimes they are meaningful, and sometimes they are neither pleasant nor meaningful.

M: I… Oh. So, when we went to India, that was transformative for me.

P: Yes.

M: It was the most run down, impoverished society I’d ever been in and trust me, I’ve been in. I’d lived, actually overseas, in a house that had no windows and no running water, so you know, I’d seen poverty. But the things I saw in India have stuck with me. I can still smell, smells of India.

P: Yeah, wow.

M: And I can still in a real tangible way, remember a lot of just horrible, horrible things. But I also still remember the, the polar opposite, the beautiful, beautiful countryside and the riches of that country. You know, the juxtaposition is just amazing. And for me, of all the countries that I’ve visited, that’s the one that stands out because it was it was novel the whole way through.

P: Mmm.

M: But some of it was not nice, laugh.

P: No.

M: No, laugh.

P: Yeah, but it’s still beneficial. It gives you an experience, it gives you a relative understanding, and this feeds into reframing, which we’ve talked about before. It’s a perspective. So, coming back to my original quote, a miserable being must find a more miserable being. It’s about understanding that there is always something that could be worse. And when you have that breadth of perspective than the fact that you can’t get a choc soy latte with no foam, it’s a little bit relative, laugh.

M: It does give you that relativity, right? It’s the juxtaposition of how horrible life was at some point that it helps you appreciate how good life actually is a lot of the time.

P: And that can turn things around. I find myself doing this a lot. Yeah, I’m an emotional, demonstrative person and –

M: – No?

P: Laugh! Don’t agree too quickly, Marie.

M & P: Laugh.

P: The point is, when you’re in the depths of despair and like, ‘Oh, my God, life is so hard’ all it takes is that relative understanding and going, ‘Oh, but I’ve got this. I’ve got that’ and it’s what you we’re saying, ‘I have a job, I have a house.’

M: Mmm hmm.

P: That’s enough and if I just focus on those things then maybe I could turn this around.

M: But it’s not turning it around, because you’re allowed your tantrum, you’re allowed to feel crappy.

P: Absolutely.

M: You know, things go wrong.

P: Who doesn’t love to put on their Princess tiara and go for it!

M: Me!

P: Laugh!  

M: Well, actually, Pete, you found me today with my vodka and my chocolate.

P: Laugh!

M: I’m having one of those days where I’ve allowed myself chocolate bickies. Dairy free of course.

P: You’re going to pay for that. You know you’re going to pay for that, the next 24 hours, laugh.

M: No, no, no, they’re dairy free, gluten free. …You know, people don’t need to know my eating [intolerances].

P: Laugh!

M: Anyway. Um, but you found me today with the chocolate biscuits and the vodka, laugh.

P: Oh, dear.

M: Right? Laugh. It was one of those days where I needed to. And we talked about different types of care and rest. This was a rest from having to be healthy and look after myself and do the right thing all the time.

P: Love it.

M: Look after myself.

P: I’ve had a day like that. As I said, I said to Marie this morning, I sat down this morning, I’ve got a week off of lectures this week, I was gonna do four hours of study. I lasted 45 minutes and then I went and played in the garden, laugh.

M: Perfect.

P: Yay.

M: I think that’s part of self-care and forgiving the fact that you didn’t do four hours of study and you only did 45 [min]. That will come back, you can’t avoid things forever, right?

P: No, it’s not about avoiding. No, very true, and you pick it back up again. But it is important to give yourself that slack. When you’re having those days, It’s okay, and that’s a novel experience.

M: Gardening instead of studying?

P: Sure.

M: There’s nothing novel about that for you, Pete.

P: Laugh. Come on, I was reaching, laugh.

M: All right, so let’s help people understand how they can have a psychologically rich life, according to Shigehiro.

P: Mmm.

M: So, the way that him and his team measure a person’s level of psychological richness or propensity towards novel experiences is by asking a whole lot of statements. So, what we’re going to do, Pete, is I’m going to read these statements out.

P: Ooh, fun! Audience participation!

M: Did you say the F word? You dropped the F bomb then.

P: No, I said audience participation and I shimmied my shoulders.

M: Oh, I’ve got no idea what I heard there…

P: Laugh!

M: Anyway, we are going to answer on a scale from one which means strongly disagree to seven which means strongly agree.

P: Okay. All right, I’m ready. I’m strapped in, laugh.

M: Okay. And what you do with your final score is up to you. So, this is just a bit of self-exploration for a Monday morning, which is when we launch or whenever you’re listening to this.

P: It’s Monday already! Oh, my Lord!

M: Laugh. [Quietly speaking] We release our episodes on Monday morning Pete, laugh.

P: I knew that, laugh.

M: You rock up every week and you’re like I don’t know what happens after this.

P: Laugh!

M: Somehow, stuff gets published, laugh.

P & M: Laugh.

P: La, la, la, la I’m fabulous.

P & M: Laughter!

M: Alright, let’s get through. So, I’ve picked eight statements for us to go through before we run out of time. So, the first one on a scale of 1 to 7. Do you strongly disagree [1] or strongly agree [7]?

I have had a lot of novel experiences.

P: I’m going to go a big old seven. I feel like I’ve… If I died tomorrow, I’d be really happy with the life that I’ve had thus far. I’ve had some amazing highs and big lows. I’ve had lots of different stuff going on. I’ve had lots of novel experiences and so, yeah, I’d be really happy with saying seven on that. I feel very lucky to have had the opportunity to live the life that I’ve lived.

M: Aww, that warms my heart.

P: Well, you’re a big part of that Marie. Big love.

M: Oh, even better. All right, number two,

My life has been full of unique, unusual experiences.

P: Mmm. I’d probably say another strong, a strong seven. Um, unique? definitely. It’s always relative when you talk to people.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: And I can say, ‘Oh, I’ve done this, this and this and people go, ‘Oh, my goodness. You’ve lived a really full life.’

M: Mmm hmm.

P: And you go, ‘Oh, have I? It’s just It’s just what I’ve done.’

M: Ha, ha, ha. Yep!

P: Doesn’t everybody do this?

M: I been stumbling through and that’s where my life took me so I went.

P: Yes, I was kicked out of France and held in a holding cell with French policemen. And that was fine.

M: Laugh. They were cute, so it was okay.

P: They were fabulous, all they wanted to talk about was rugby.

M: Ha, lovely. And they probably would have been nice, I’m sure because they won the world cup.

P: Yeah.

M: That was a while ago.

P: Yeah, yeah. Laugh.

M: Okay. Moving onto number three.

My life consists of rich, intense moments.

P: 6 to 7. Rich and intense. That’s an interesting use of phrases I would say intense, definitely. I think I almost encourage intense experiences. And that comes from having…

M: Do you?

P: Sorry?

M: Mmm, no. Keep going.

P: I’d say.

M: No, you finished.

P: Intense experiences. I would say that I’m the person that runs headlong into a storm.

M: Mmm.

P: I’m like, ‘All right, if it’s coming at me, I’m not going to run away from it, I’m gonna go ‘Right, come at me, here we go.’

M: I hate conflict, but in general yes.

P: Yeah.

M: I feel like my life is kind of like a bell curve. It’s either I’m hiding away and writing for hours on end with no like –

P: Yes.

M: Everyone leave me alone and I want to read a book. And I want to lead the most grandma-ish of lives. I just need to pick up knitting and I’ll be right.

P: Laugh. I can’t see you knitting.

M: It takes too much patience for knitting. And then on the other side, it is I don’t know the word no, I’m all in and I’m in 150 million bajillion percent, laugh!

P: Yeah, yep.

M: There is no in between for me.

P: That’s richness.

M: Yeah.

P: You’re probably a rich thrill seeker.

M: Absolutely. Yeah.

P: Yeah.

M: Give me a theme park.

P: Yep, you’re in for the ride.

M: Yeah.

P: Laugh.

M: All right, number four.

I experience a full range of emotions via firsthand experiences such as travel and attending concerts.

P: Big old yes. Hard yes.

M: That’s a yes for me too. Well, pre covid.

P: Obviously. But even, even within covid, there’s, there’s I think that yeah, there are.

M: You compromise.

P: There are ways of accessing, you go seeking it. You go looking for it.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: It’s like I need I need that rush. I need I need something exciting so, whether it will be, you know, having a naked bath on the front of the balcony where everyone can see you or something like that, I don’t know. I’m thinking of a friend of ours.

M: [Whispers] Remember we’re PG?

P: I know, but it’s so much fun!

M: Ok, moving on.

P: I love you, Felix. Laugh!

M: I have a lot of personal stories to tell others.

M: See, I don’t think I’m the best storyteller, but I do have a lot of stories, I’d say.

P: I’m mid-range on this one. Yeah, yeah, that’s a hard one because that’s again that’s being vulnerable.

M: And open and you don’t generally tend to go ‘blah, here’s my everything.’ Like it’s taken me a while to get to know you and hear your stories, but I would say you do have a lot of them.

P: Interesting. Okay, I would never make that judgement. I would let my friends make that judgement to be honest.

M: I’ve never had troubles with you, not talking. Laugh.

P: That’s because it’s you Muz. Laugh. Well, yeah, well, me and shy don’t necessarily go together.

M: Laugh, mmm.

P: Although I can be. I do say to people sometimes I’m naturally very shy, really, I am.

M: [Snort] Laugh.

P: Laugh!

M: All right. Let’s get through these last two so our lovely listeners can go off on their days. Okay, they get a bit morbid here.

P: Oh, my Lord!

M: On my deathbed, I’m likely to say, “I had an interesting life.”

P: I think I’ve already answered that one. I answered that one in question one.

M: Yeah, you did.

P: Moving on.

M: And the last one is,

On my deathbed, I am likely to say, “I have seen and learned a lot.”

P: Hard yes.

M: For me, yes. But I do want to say that I hit a period in my life and career after studying, going overseas and, you know, um, playing volleyball around the world and all of that where I hit my career and I settled. And I, for some reason, thought that was when, you know, like, things should calm down and you have your four weeks of holiday and a lot of people get into that trap.

P: Mmm.

M: You know, I was climbing the corporate ladder, saving to buy a house. That kind of stuff and life didn’t… wasn’t psychologically rich. I kind of stopped doing a lot of that stuff for a while, and I burned out. I was too focused on work.

P: That’s a really interesting point to kind of bring to a conclusion with the episode is that if you feel like you’re not having a psychologically rich life, is that a point to turn around and go, ‘Maybe something’s not right here? Or maybe, maybe I need to reframe. Maybe I need to relook at this?’

M: Or make some plans. That’s, I mean that’s really all this comes down to.

P: Mmm.

M: What unique, intense, novel experiences that are interesting or can teach you things or show you new things can you put into your next month and your next year that you can look forward to and plan for?

P: I think that’s our weekly challenge to our listeners.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: We want rich, intense, novel… What was the fourth one?

M: Laugh, it doesn’t need to be all of them. One is fine.

P: Oh, come on!

M: Me and my eternal optimism just booked a cruise next year in Europe.

P: Oh! Wow! You’re brave.

M: We will see if I actually get to do that.

P: I just want to go to the mountains! Laugh.

M: But I’m all in!

P: So, that’s our homework people. To find something that can bring psychological richness into your month. It doesn’t have to be huge, remember that it can be something small, but I think I think that’s a really good focus for a monthly task to find something psychologically stimulating and rich, novel, intense.

M: Yep.

P: Open arms into the tidal wave, here we go.

M: And on that note, we’ll see you next week.

P: Have a happy week.

[Happy exit music – background] 

M: Thanks for joining us today if you want to hear more, please remember to subscribe and like this podcast and remember you can find us at www.marieskelton.com, where you can also send in questions or propose a topic. 

P: And if you like our little show, we would absolutely love for you to leave a comment or rating to help us out. 

M: Until next time. 

M & P: Choose happiness.  

[Exit music fadeout] 

Please note that I get a small commission if you buy something from my site. Your support helps to keep this site going at no additional cost to you. Thanks! 

Mental Health in an Unequal World (E88)

by

Happiness for Cynics podcast

This week, Marie and Pete talk about inequality and equity and how it impacts our mental health.

Show notes

In this week’s episode, Marie and Pete talk about a great video which helps people to better understand privilege. Check it out.

Transcript

M: Welcome to happiness for cynics and thanks for joining us as we explore all the things I wish I’d known earlier in life but didn’t.  

P: This podcast is about how to live the good life. Whether we’re talking about a new study or the latest news or eastern philosophy, our show is all about discovering what makes people happy.  

M: So, if you’re like me and you want more out of life, listen in and more importantly, buy in because I guarantee if you do, the science of happiness can change your life.  

P: Plus, sometimes I think we’re kind of funny. 

[Intro music fadeout] 

P: Yeah. Hey, hey, It’s exciting. Oh, my Lord, this feels so weird. We’re back in the same room. Oh, my God. Like it’s been whole three months. I’m not saying you being able to be negative.

M: I love the way you’re saying that. That is making me think. “Oh, my God, Becky, look at her butt”

P: Yes, Romy and Michelle’s high school reunion! We’re back. We’re back together. It’s so nice to see you.

M: So nice to see you too. No one else can see us seeing each other.

P: I can see you see me. So that’s all good. It is so good. And next week. Sydney’s opening up So that’s good news for us. It’s huge news for us. We’ve been in a three month plus lockdown, our first real big one. So yes, you could feel the excitement. I’ve got clients coming through my door going, Oh my God, can you believe Monday’s coming?

M: Not only that, we’ve had beautiful spring weather. There’s just birds and it’s lovely. Yeah, absolutely.

P: So what are we talking about today?

M: Well, today we’re talking about World Mental Health Day and this is theme is mental health in an unequal world. So the 10th of October is World Mental Health Day. I wish you and your family good mental health on that day.

P: It’s wonderful that we’ve actually got a day for. I mean, there’s a day for everything these days, but a day…

M: And a month we’ve got a mental health month as well, and Australia does a different one to America and all around the world.

P: But we’re talking about mental health more, which I think is really valuable.

M: Absolutely.

P: And what I like about this one is that this particular focus on the inequality of mental health and how certain people have more access to mental health than others. And how we can redress that.

M: Well, not only that, it’s talking about inequality more broadly, so not just around mental health. It’s about how poverty, for instance, and there are a range of different groups out there who are still experiencing inequality today. And we talk about the huge progress we made in the 20th century when it comes to women’s rights, for instance. But even in the past year, we’ve seen with the #MeToo movement in America that there’s still so much that we need to do. We are still so far from having an equitable society. Um, and women’s rights is one of the most progressed. If you look at groups like people with disabilities or, um, LGBTQ rights around the world, there’s huge inequities, particularly if you look country to country. We are pretty blessed here in Australia, But even here there is still huge ingrained hatred and, uh, all the ISMs… racism, you know, homophobia, agism and all of those things that as a society we haven’t redressed.

P: We’re starting to redress them here in Australia. We’ve had a number of royal commissions lately in the last maybe decade, I would say that is redressing and bringing to light some of these issues, particularly in terms of elder care and disabled access, and people with disabilities. So it is the start of the conversation. But how does this impact on people’s access to health and to happiness?

M: Well, what we’re talking about here is a person feeling “less than,” right? So your experience as a non-binary or a transgender person, or as a woman in this world, or as a person of colour or a person with a disability is “less than” others around you… the majority. And therefore, we’ve spoken about this before, it’s looking at those around you and knowing that you have less than others because of the system you’re in, not because you’ve worked less hard or you’ve done something wrong, but the system is stacked against you. And so when you look at others around you and you find that you have less opportunity and less access to everything, including mental health resources, then your ability to be happy is impacted

P. Absolutely. How do you work against that? How do you find a way through?

M: Oh my goodness. That’s a big question isn’t it?

P: Yeah

M: look, what I love about positive psychology is that it started saying, let’s not only focus on the bad, let’s also focus on the good so that you’re painting reality. Right now, your reality is that if you are one of these people in one of these minority groups and that that minority group has historically and systemically been disadvantaged, then you are starting from behind the start line in life line, and that’s reality.

P: A wonderful video of the American coach who gets his class out on the football field. And everybody who answers yes to a question gets to take two steps forward and some kids never leave the start line [see video in show notes]. Some kids, yeah, and the kids who are at the front don’t see them. And so, at the end of this exercise, he asked the kids at the front to turn around and they look behind them and they see everybody else who are 100 metres behind them and starting from a lot further back. And they have to work all that much harder to get to the same start point. And it makes it relative that when you have privilege, how valuable that can be and the awareness of being able to go, “right, I have privilege because of the A, B, C and D. How do I address the imbalance?”

M: So that’s awareness, and that is gold. That’s really great exercise to help people understand privilege. However, if you are starting behind others, there is a reality to that. And that doesn’t mean give up.

P: No, definitely not.

M: It does mean you still have things to be thankful for, and there are still ways positive psychology can bring the good to your world. So you’ve got the things that you can’t change that are outside your sphere of influence, they are what they are. And many people have their own story, their own background, their own baggage… and some people have a lot more that they bring with them. And then there is still the hope and the inspiration that comes from people who, despite all the odds, are happy, positive, optimistic people. And that’s what the goal is.

P: You see this so much with certain cultures that have got things like generosity and gratefulness and mindfulness built into their cultural values that you see if anyone has been to Nepal. You see these people live simple lives. They live on the side of a mountain, and they are so happy and so generous, and they will give you the shirt off their back. And the joy that they emanate is because they value simplicity, um, and mindfulness and family and society. And all of these things that we know are proven to increase your mental well being and happiness subjective wellbeing levels.

M: And not only that, I think that the flip side is, you know, if you’ve been dealt a raw hand, there’s still things you can do to increase your happiness, right? We’ll pop it in the show notes that video about privilege. If you’ve been dealt a good hand, it’s still important to do all of these things that we talk about on the show because it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to be happy. As we’ve seen before, a lot of us are stuck in the rat race. We’re trying to get more and more and more, and we’re not focusing on mindfulness getting out into nature, being grateful all of those things. But also, if you do find that you’re living a life that is privileged and I definitely am, I’ll put my hand up to say that I’ve had a lot of advantages in life. Some of the things you can do is just to become an ally.

P: Yes, do something proactive and creative reflect on the community. How do you support your community? How do you contribute to your local community?

M: Next time you hear someone say something racist or sexist or homophobic or ageist or anything like that, what are you going to do? How can you help in a polite and respectful way to bring people forward on this journey so that we end up at a point of equity at some point in the near future? Hopefully, in our lifetime!

P: It doesn’t take much. It can just be about having that conversation. And it does have to be a respectful and dignified conversation because someone who has an opinion, you’re not going to change that opinion.

M: You might be able to..

P: but that should be the goal.

M: But sometimes people say things without realising the impact it has on others, and I’ve been pulled up, and I was mortified that I used a word that I didn’t realise had such a bad impact on a certain group. And I’ve never said – well, I think I might have said it once or twice accidentally since – but I’ve made a real effort never to say it again. Never deliberately. And that’s growth and that, you know, I thank the person who pulled me up on that and had an awkward conversation is an awkward conversation. And it’s not an easy one to have.

P: When you’re um, perhaps a colleague at work or something. Someone has been a more senior position. It’s difficult to go one sec. I need to talk about this. Yeah, absolutely. But that’s how you can be a really strong ally.

M: Absolutely. And then a lot of us who work for corporate will have various days through the year. There’s wear it Purple Day that we do in my organisation to support LGBT like we wear purple T shirts, make an effort on that day to find a purple T shirt or to find a scarf, or to find a way to show that you are supporting that community because it is such a simple thing for us who are in the privileged position and in the majority to just go, “I don’t have a purple T shirt.”

P:  This is what I like about these awareness days, like I love the one about hearing impairment like you don’t we take it for granted because we can all here. But when you come across someone that has a hearing impairment, how do you communicate? How do you work with that? How do you find make someone’s life easier? Who has that hearing impairment? I’ve been getting access to a lot of that in terms of a communication course that I’m doing through my studies at the moment. And it’s made me really self-reflect on how I interact with those people who are living with disabilities and providing equal access and also being respectful enough in terms of, um, not drawing attention to it, I’m not dismissing it in my daily interactions

M: It’s also about being flexible to accommodate it

P: absolutely hugely.

M: Find a way, call someone you know who can help you communicate. Go that little bit further or the extra mile to help that person feel included and help them belong. It’s huge. Another thing you can do is simply educate yourself.

P: That’s a huge one that can be uncomfortable as well.

M: Yeah, absolutely.

P: You’re putting yourself in that receptive position. For some people, it’s really difficult because some people believe, “But I’m not racist.” I’m a running gag with a friend of mine. You know, I’m always going on about the ‘bloody Asians.’ But I totally don’t agree with that, I have to have to quantify this. So I managed a volleyball club for many years and it was predominantly Asian. And so when I walked into that club, I boxed Asian people into one big pigeon hole. And then what I realised was that there was a difference between dealing with the Thai population, dealing with the Chinese population dealing with the Malaysians, and that all these different populations have their idiosyncrasies and intricacies. That was my education, and I had to take a big kick. Step back, really look at myself. So now it’s quite interesting, but when I say “the bloody Asians” it comes from a place of love. But if someone heard me, they probably wouldn’t

M: there is probably a whole other conversation about how you probably are encouraging other people.

P: My point exactly is that I’ve got to check myself when I do those sorts of things, because I might be coming from it from a place of love. And yet I’m supporting a stereotype and the negative by making light of the situation or making it into a gag.

M: Yeah, absolutely. So there are so many great videos. I watched a great one on Trans People the other day, 15-minute video on YouTube and learned about language and gender and sexual identity versus physical, what you’re born with and what you identify as and it was just. And I am heavily involved in the LGBT community, both at work and in volleyball circles, and it was still confusing me. So, I think the thing to ask yourself is, Do I have a friend who identifies as a minority group? And if you don’t go watch a video from that person’s perspective, that can be tough for some people. I also don’t have any indigenous friends, so that’s another area where I lack firsthand experience and so it’s important to go find someone who has lived experience with being in that minority group and watch a video about their experiences.

P: That’s a very relevant I was going to say, Australian, but I’m probably getting myself into trouble there. Um, I come from a very rural community. That was where I was brought up. And there’s a lot of calls about Australia being a racist country, which I believe that fundamentally it is.

M: I think some people are. I think it’s like that with every country.

P: Exactly This is my point is I come at it from my perspective that when you’re in those pockets where that that rhetoric is prevalent, and you wonder how many people in a minority group do these people associate with? So instead of discarding someone on the street or stereotype seeing them and judging them for who they are, put yourself in an uncomfortable position and go and spend some time there…

M: Yeah, or go online today, right? That’s very easy. So, you know, not every person who is in a minority wants to be a spokesperson for that minority group. They don’t necessarily… You don’t want to go approach the gay guy at work and be like, hey, because you’re gay, can you talk to me about the gay population?

P: Isn’t your crew happy now? It’s Mardi Gras.

M: I’m sure you’ve had that a lot, right? And just as you know, I often early in my career, was asked to represent grads. And you do a lot of work when you’re helping grads. When I was in a grad position, but also women and a lot of extra hours to represent women in and I was in tech. So women in tech, I was on committees and, you know, organising events and stuff. And it’s all done on top of your day job. So be really careful not to find that one person in your organisation or your sports group or whatever and put that extra burden on them. Really, the burden should be on you, and there are great online resources that don’t put a burden on anyone. There are people who have stood up and put themselves out there to help other people understand them in their community. So I highly recommend that.

M: So I do just want to say the theme for this year’s World Mental Health Day is mental health is an unequal world, and what they’re trying to do is highlight that inequality due to race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity and the lack of respect for human rights in many countries, including for people living with mental health conditions and physical health conditions and all of those differences, inequality can have impacts on our happiness levels. And we saw that earlier, we spoke about it this year in the World Happiness Report that came out in March. Yes, so if you remember, we talked about how one of the major findings from this year’s World Happiness Report was that – and that looks at 157 countries and the quality of lives as they’re being lived. And the report’s assembled by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, which is made up of economists, psychologists and public health experts around the world – and one of the main findings this year is the assessment of how inequality affects wellbeing across the various countries. So essentially, researchers have found that people are happier when they live in populations with less inequality.

P: We’ve talked about this before in terms of Ted talk that we found where a an English scholar was explaining how inequality, wealth, inequality, impacts on social inequality and people’s access and experience of happiness and feelings of belonging and contentment. Yeah, right down to the financial aspects of it.

M: So you’d find in a country like America, which has one of the highest, if not the highest, levels of income inequality, your top 1% (You can’t even wrap your head around how much they earn per hour or you can’t. And I’m not exaggerating. You can’t) versus someone who’s working 60 hours a week to put food on the table at $5 an hour and can’t afford a healthy meal. Can’t afford to feed their kids fruit and vegetables because it’s just not doable.

P: Yep, absolutely.

M: And so that’s the difference that, um, you’re seeing in America versus potentially a third… developing country. Urgh, I’m always going to go back and say, ‘Third World’ I need to stop myself… sorry, developing country that doesn’t have that income inequality because they’ve got less money overall, so that top 1% is far closer to the bottom 1%.

P: Exactly.

M: That society, even though they’re in a developing country and their access to clean water and fresh food, is just as, um poor, if not worse, because they’ve got less inequality within their society. It impacts less on their happiness.

P: Absolutely, and the science proves it if you can, if you can value those elements of human connection, sometimes that leads to better contentment

M: and stop comparing yourself to others. We’ve talked about social media as well, and how this is exacerbating that need to compare to people around you. And, you know, if you had a plan to get married and have kids by 30 and all your friends have and you still haven’t, it’s the comparison. If your friends have bigger houses, bigger incomes, nicer cars, sexier husbands… whatever, it is we naturally compare. So it’s dropping that comparison from our self talk and how we look at our lives… which is not an easy thing to do! But again, um, when you talk about inequality and inequity, something that compounds that is constantly focusing on it.

P: Yes, bring it back to you. Bring back to your goals and your ideals and your values

M: mmmm, and the positive psychology side. What can you control and what is good in your life of control? What is good and what’s important? A lot of the times you might be thinking, How come that person has a great car?

P: I don’t

M: But really, when you sit down, do you even want a nice car?

P: Exactly. Yeah, all right.

M: But we’re done for another week. So wishing everybody out there a happy mental Health day, World Mental Health Day and I highly encourage you to go out and watch YouTube video about a minority group if you don’t have a friend or family member who has that lived experience. And work on a way that you can speak up, will become a better ally or support one of these groups so that we can continue our fight against inequality.

P: Absolutely. Get involved in the community. Find it in the community. On that note until next time. Have a happy week.

[Happy exit music – background] 

M: Thanks for joining us today if you want to hear more, please remember to subscribe and like this podcast and remember you can find us at www.marieskelton.com, where you can also send in questions or propose a topic. 

P: And if you like our little show, we would absolutely love for you to leave a comment or rating to help us out. 

M: Until next time. 

M & P: Choose happiness.  

[Exit music fadeout] 

Please note that I get a small commission if you buy something from my site. Your support helps to keep this site going at no additional cost to you. Thanks! 

Making a Positive Portfolio (E87)

by

Happiness for Cynics podcast

This week, Marie and Pete talk about how to reinforce your happiness by making a positive portfolio highlighting positive emotions.

Show notes

Positive Portfolio – 10 emotions (according to Barbara Fredrickson)

  • Gratitude,
  • Serenity,
  • Interest,
  • Hope,
  • Pride,
  • Amusement,
  • Inspiration,
  • Awe,
  • Love, and
  • Joy.

Transcript

[Happy intro music -background] 

M: Welcome to happiness for cynics and thanks for joining us as we explore all the things I wish I’d known earlier in life but didn’t.  

P: This podcast is about how to live the good life. Whether we’re talking about a new study or the latest news or eastern philosophy, our show is all about discovering what makes people happy.  

M: So, if you’re like me and you want more out of life, listen in and more importantly, buy in because I guarantee if you do, the science of happiness can change your life.  

P: Plus, sometimes I think we’re kind of funny. 

[Intro music fadeout] 

M: Hey, hey!

P: Hello happy people!

M: I’m happy today. Are you happy today?

P: I am happy today. I have one more day to reach before the end of term and then I have a week of no lectures. So, I’m feeling very positive.

M: Whoop, whoop!

P: Oh yeah, laugh.

M: I make an online purchase –

P: Oh!

M: – for my cats, a scratching post. So, it arrived yesterday and took it out of the box. I put it right next to where they love to hang out. And they have spent 24 hours non-stop… playing with the box.

P: Laughter! It’s like a two-year-old at Christmas.

M: Laugh, it is! Playing with the wrapping paper.

P: Laugh!

M: They’re enthralled, I even put a ball into the box and that just kicked off a whole other round of games.

P: Wow, laugh. What about the scratching post? Where did you put the scratch post? Laugh.

M: It’s just sitting next to the wall, hasn’t been touched. Laugh, unfortunately.

P: Hilarious.

M: But that is joy and play,

P: Mmm.

M: and they’re loving it.

P: Laugh.

M: So, that brings us to what we’re talking about today.

P: Which is…

M: Positive portfolios and how to make a positive portfolio. I am studying at the moment, it’s a year-long course at the Happiness Studies Academy and it’s run by Tal Ben Shahar, who’s the Harvard professor who wrote the book Happier.

M: And last week we covered off positive portfolios, the why, the science and what to do with it. And I just have to share this week –

P: Laugh.

M: – because I’ve gotten started on pulling it together, and it is such a simple thing that can bring so much emotion. I won’t say which ones yet, because we’ll get to that later.

P: Ok.

M: So much good and positive emotion into your life and either for yourself personally or with others. And it’s not something we do that much anymore. In a world of digital lives, we’re not creating tangible portfolios of things in the way that we used to.

P: Are you talking about scrapbooks?

M: …Yes. What was it that women used to make? Some mothers and grandmothers used to make boxes to give to their granddaughters for their wedding day.

P: Oh, the glory box?

M: Yes, Glory boxes!

P: Yes, yes. The glory box is a story.

M: It’s a box of emotions.

P: Ooh.

M: Yes.

P: I’m getting all sorts of images now. Like a little camphor box. My sister had a glory box. It was a camphor thing, and it was huge. All the treasures, all the generational treasures went into it so that when she married.

M: All the hand me downs, keepsakes, all that kind of stuff.

P: Mmm, yeah.

M: So, positive portfolios is what we’re talking about today. This idea came from James Pawelski and Alain de Botton, who are both pioneers in the field of happiness. And I’d actually read one of Alain’s books ages ago on philosophy, and one of the great things about Alain is he’s so well read.

P: Mmm.

M: And he brings together philosophy and psychology and sociology and history and brings them together in so many different and interesting ways. And we’ve got a couple of quotes here from James Pawelski, but really, what we’re talking about and what both of these positive psychology or happiness pioneers are talking about is positive portfolios, and all that is, is a bunch of things that you collect to reinforce an emotion.

P: It’s like picture books. You sort of go back over your picture books to remember events in your life.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: It’s why, before we had the digital age, I remember putting things into photo albums.

M: Yep.

P: And then you’d pull them out when you were having friends over for dinner and go, “let me take you through my trip to Italy.”

M & P: Laugh.

P: Bore everybody for hours, laugh.

M: And then you’d get a slide projector out.

P & M: Laughter!

P: Yes! Slide nights. We had slide nights. They were hilarious.

M: Or do you remember when you were little, burying a time capsule?

P: I never did that. They never got a chance to do that.

M: Things that were important to you.

P: Mmm, mmm. I like the idea, though, pulling something out of 50 years-time.

M: Of things that mattered to you then.

P: Mmm, mmm.

M: There were a couple of quotes you were going to share with us from James Pawelski.

P: There was. So, he’s talking about positive portfolio in the first one, and this one is that it’s a target for a group.

“Brainstorm what music, poems, pictures, letters, emails, cards, objects, and the like you could include in your portfolio. Place your portfolio in whatever binder, folder, or container works best given its contents.” [– James Pawelski]

P: So, that’s the instruction. But then he talks about the positive portfolio is intended to be a verbal, visual and auditory collection of materials conducive of a particular effective state. First, select what particular effective state you would like to practise. Be it Joy, Gratitude, Serenity, Interest, Hope, Pride, Amusement, Inspiration, Awe, or Love.

M: I love it. And those emotions that he’s mentioned there are from Barbara Fredrickson’s 10 big emotions. They’re the big things that are super cool. So, it’s saying again we’ll go again because we’re going to make you guys at home do this. And Pete and I both gotten started on doing this.

P: Laugh. Which is rather fun, I’ve got to say. I actually quite enjoyed this little task. Yeah, it did bring me a lot of joy to be honest. It was like, ‘Oh, this is kind of inspiring.’

M: I’ve loved it as well. So, what emotion did you pick, Pete?  

P: Well, I chose two, but I’m going to choose the one that I did have, which is love. So, a love portfolio.

M: So, the emotions you can pick, the 10 big emotions, according to Barbara Fredrickson, positive emotions, are:  

  • Gratitude,
  • Serenity,
  • Interest,
  • Hope,
  • Pride,
  • Amusement,
  • Inspiration,
  • Awe,
  • Love, and
  • Joy.

P: What’s interest, Marie? What would you put in that?

M: For me, it would be all of these books on positive psychology.

P: Laugh.

M: The practice of doing this podcast just shows my interest in this topic. I went on a bent a while ago with philosophy, which is where I first discovered Alain de Botton.

P: Mmm.

M: And then before that, I went on a classics… and so Jane Eyre and…

P: Oh, wow.

M: Everything that’s on the top 100 books you should read in your lifetime. I read the whole thing.

P: Like I said, you devour books.

M: Laugh, I do. Sometimes it’s been baking and learning how to do the fancy baking. Not so much since I found out I’m gluten intolerant and dairy intolerant because that really limits how much baking you can do.

P: It certainly does limit the baking you can do.

M: Laugh.

P: Yeah, gluten free flours doesn’t behave the same, I’m sorry. Laugh!

M: No, and neither does almond milk compared to normal milk.

P: Laugh, no.

M: Not the same at all. But there are so many things out there, and we talk about nowadays the importance of lifelong learning and having interest. And recently I’ve been really interested and looking into van life and tiny home.

P: Laugh!

M: So that’s been what’s on my YouTube video watching.

P: Ok, yeah, right.

M: So, look I’m one of those people that’s like ‘Ooh, something shiny!’

P: Laugh.

M: And off I go. And at the moment for you, I’d say a lot of what you’re probably finding interesting is through your studies.

P: Oh, completely. Yeah, I’m totally obsessed and a huge nerd. It’s ridiculous. I know everybody in my classes.

M & P: Laugh.

P: [Whispering class-mates] ‘Shut him up!’ Laugh.

M: It’s not about them. It’s all about you.

P: Laugh, I can be selfish? I did. I did make that choice this morning, so we were about to do our lecture and usually I try not to answer all the questions. And my lecturer sent me a private message, and he could see me mouthing the words. He said, ‘Peter, your muted.’

M: Laugh.

P: And I wrote back to say, ‘There’s a reason I’m muted, I don’t want to appear like a Hermione Granger.’

M & P: Laugh!

P: And he wrote back saying, ‘We love Hermione Granger’s!’ So, today I decided to be a Hermione Granger and just answer every single question as it came up, and we got through the lecture in an hour and a half that’s supposed to take two hours.

M & P: Laugh.

M: And you know what, everyone else in the room would have been like, ‘Woo hoo, 30 minutes back!

P: Laugh! There you go.

M & P: Laugh!

P: But we digress. Back to positive portfolios.

M: So, you picked love?

P: I did.

M: And I picked joy.

P: Mmm.

M: So, really keen to just share.

P: Share?

M: We’ve actually had some really great feedback from quite a few of our listeners who, I cannot thank you enough for bothering to listen to little Pete and me.

P & M: Laugh.

P: Always feels a bit embarrassing when people say ‘Oh, I love your podcast.’ And I’m like, ‘Oh, really?

M: Oh, shit. What am I going to say?

P: Laugh. We just chat.

M: Laugh, so this is time for us to share a little bit. So, I’m really keen to understand what your portfolio would look like. So, would you put it in a binder, or is it in a drive or a folder on your computer or is it a physical thing?

P: I think I would have to be a physical thing. Yeah, mine would have to be like a suitcase that you would unpack, and I put items out on a table so that everyone could sort of see what represented, what was representative for me, but also maybe bring their own meaning to it.

M: I love it. So, what would you put in your [love portfolio]?

P: All right. So, the first one, you’re going to laugh at, is massages.

M: Oh, we know that your love language is touch.

P: Laugh, yeah.

M: So, giving or receiving massage?

P: Both. I’ve always said this, and it’s very interesting now that I am studying a different degree and looking at doing a career change. There’s a lot of my long-term clients that are like, ‘are you still gonna massage when you’re a physio and I’m like, Yeah, I’m pretty sure I will, because I love that space. I love the intimacy of it. I love the investment in it. It’s the quiet space. And it’s a non-verbal activity, which I just adore because to me, the body doesn’t lie, laugh.

M: Hold on. So, when I come in and get a massage and just ramble the whole time, you’re like, ‘far out…’

P: Laugh.

M: ‘Shut up.’

P: Laugh, well, you listen to Disney in your massages, so that’s okay.

M & P: Laugh.

M: Okay, So massages in your love portfolio.

P: Definitely.

M: So, what else?

P: Cuddles on rugs, so rugs are a part of it because it’s textural. It’s like I have thick rugs in my house.

M: Tactile.

P: Yeah, very tactile. Big thick shag pile rugs and cuddles on rugs, there’s something about lying on the floor because you’re not incumbered by a defined space. You can roll everywhere, and you can be really physical, and you’re still on the rug. I mean, I have big rugs, so that kind of work for me.

M & P: Laugh.

P: Dinners or picnics, food. Food is very much a part of my love category.

M: You love cooking.

P: Yes, definitely. To cook and sit with a dinner with a loved one is very special. It’s there’s a, there’s a chemistry in it, there’s a visceral partaking of so many senses that are involved with dinners and so forth that I love.

M: So, make sure you keep an eye on your portfolio, so it doesn’t go mouldy.

P: Laugh. That’s all right, every time I open it, I have to cook a new dish that works for me.

M: All right, they don’t stay in the portfolio.

P: Laugh.

M: They get consumed and then logged in words.

P & M: Laugh!

P: Then there’s vistas, so, awe inspiring nature scenes, whether it be an ocean, a mountain. One thing that I’m really missing at the moment is going for a drive in the mountains, and I think that’s a real, that’s something that I would share with love and include in love simply because of the amazing depth of feeling that I get from being out in nature.

M: Would you have to share that with someone for it to fall in your love portfolio?

P: No, definitely not, it’s something that you can do solo that is still involved in love. Yeah, it’s definitely both.

M: Is it self-love? Is that what you’re talking about?

P: Yeah.

M: Freedom for yourself.

P: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Going for solo drives is a is a bit of a passion of mine. And I’ve done it in Sydney with this lovely Royal Botanical Park, which is down south. And when I first bought my little red convertible, I drove down there with opera playing and the top was down and it was sunny, and I felt so ebullient. It was, it was like I was in a movie set.

M: Mmm.

P: It was so good. And that’s self-love for me. Real treats.

M: Love it.

P: Wine, of course.

M & P: Laugh.

P: More food. Me and my wines. I’ve actually yes, I’ve actually been rediscovering my passion for wine, and it’s, uh yeah, it’s I get inside wine, and I want to get involved with it. Try different things and the colours and the flavours and so forth.

M: Mmm.

P: Linen tablecloths. Again, it’s a textural thing.

M: That mean love?

P: Yeah, that means love for me, because I have the tablecloth, which is a damask tablecloth from my mother that was given to her by her mother when she was 18.

M: See, there’s the love.

P: Yeah, So that’s a love thing.

M: The meaning.

P: Definitely. Yeah. totally. And it’s funny that Mum, I don’t think she ever used it. It sat in the cupboard for years, and she gave it to me, and I used it straight away. I was like, Dinner party, let’s come over and, you know someone spills a red wine stain on it and I’m like, ‘Meh, that’s fine, that’s what bi-carb’s for.’ Laugh.

M: And that’s love. There’s a story behind it now. And you know what? Our parents and our parents, parents, had the good set and the not so good set.

P: Yes! I don’t get this! It doesn’t make sense.

M: It doesn’t make sense to us, because it all costs the same now. And it’s cheap as chips. But for them, you know, you don’t want the kids ruining your fine China when it costs… You know, you get one set for marriage, and that’s it.

P: Yeah. Yeah, I get that it’s precious but.

M: We’re the throwaway generation.

P: Yeah, alright we are.

M: Yeah.

P: But I think I think a good a good cracking of China on a good story because someone got so excited when they were talking about Shakespeare, and they threw the plate against the wall. Well, I think that’s a story, laugh.

M: Yeah, but it never happens that way. It’s that Bob put his elbow down on the edge of the plate and I went flying.

P& M: Laugh!

M: That’s the reality.

P: Laugh, there’s always a Bob.

M & P: Laugh!

M: Yep.

P: Maybe we have different dinner parties.

M & P: Laugh.

P: I have people throwing things at walls, laugh. I do remember a rather wonderful dinner party I hosted in Townsville in my first job. And it was a four-course roast dinner in Townsville, which is, you know, 45 degrees at the best of days.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: And we had cigars and we were smoking and having red wine. And the three of us were getting into a bit of an animated discussion, and Avril stood up on the chair to make a point. So, then Benjamin stood up on the chair to make a point as well. And I went ‘Oh, bugger this, if you guys are getting up, I’m getting up.’ So, we all stood on chairs and battered out this argument.

M: Laugh, I was waiting for one of you to fall through the chair, but no?

P: No, completely fine. Laugh.

M: All right. Last one?

P: Sunsets.

M: Oh. I’m glad you said sunsets and not sunrises. Laugh.

P: No, Sunsets. Sunsets, yeah. There’s something very quietly reassuring about a sunset, yeah.

M: All right. I’m gonna fly through my joy portfolio.

P: Ok.

M: But mine includes Martinis.

P: Laugh!

M: And Veuve.

P: Ahh! I’m so glad you said that.

M: The songs that bring me joy, Carl Orff – Carmina Burana.

P: Ooh, oh! [panting]

M: It’s such powerful music.

P: I swear if I was allowed to…

M: And I Love Adiago for Strings as well.

P: Mmm.

M: Lately in the Club by Thomas Newsom, he’s a favourite amongst friends.

P: Mmm.

M: Into the Unknown by Indina Menzel.

P: Laugh!

M: Is also a favourite among friends at the moment.

P: Laugh.

M: For a very long time, Stuck in The Middle with You.

P: Yeah.

M: I used to play volleyball and was a middle blocker and hated it.

P: Laugh!

M: All the Lovers by Kylie Minogue, brings so many good dance memories.

P: Oh! Who doesn’t love Kylie?

M: I was playing that, as we joined today.

P: Laugh.

M: Be our Guest from Beauty & the Beast.

P: Yes!

M: Heaven by DJ Sammy.

P: Oh.

M: And Operation Blade – Public Domain.

P: I don’t know that one.

M: Definitely brings back memories from about 2000.

P: Wow.

M: And we were clubbing a lot at that point.

P: Laugh.

M: So, I’ve got quite a few quotes here as well that just brings me joy, so I’ll read a few of them.

“If you have good thoughts, they will shine out of your face like sunbeams, and you’ll always look lovely.” – Roald Dahl

P: Oh, that’s lovely. Oh, that’s good.

M: Okay,

“People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be.” – Abraham Lincoln

P: Very true.

M: Yeah.

“When I was five years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I wrote down happy. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment. I told them they didn’t understand life.” – John Lennon

P: Laugh! Wow, that’s brilliant.

M: “We don’t laugh because we’re happy. We’re happy because we laugh. –

William James.

P: Mmm.

M: And,

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing.” –

George Bernard Shaw.

P: Yeah, very much agree with that.

M: Immanuel Kant, just new things long before we did. Rules for happiness.

“Something to do, someone to love, something to hope for.” – [Immanuel Kant]

P: Mmm.

M: I think I’ll end with Maya Angelou.

“I laugh as much as I can and cry when I have to, without apology. I think that’s happy.”

P: Ooh, wow. Oh, that’s, that’s lovely.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: Yeah.

M: I would include some memorabilia in my box, so I would actually go get one of those dollar shop boxes with a lid.

P: Laugh, yeah.

M: I’d have some photos from my days at George Mason on the volleyball team.

P: Aww.

M: Photos from World University Games and the opening ceremony which had hundreds of thousands of people.

P: Wow.

M: Which was amazing. Getting my black belt and getting my offer letter from Oxford University for Post Grad, that’s in there.

P: Wow.

M: And then photos. All of our overseas trips, our trips to Coffs Harbour, our gold medal at Good Neighbour.

P: Mmm. Laugh.

M: Pretty much any time I’ve been overseas, there are memories there that just bring me so much joy. And then I want to finish by recommending an artist, an Australian artist called Maree Davidson. And she creates amazing cartoon likes somewhat realistic, somewhat cartoon art of animals. So, she’s got a pair of donkeys here and some cute giraffes, and I’ve bought four pieces of artwork from her.

P: Laugh.

M: And they just, they’re slightly childish. But they’re just happy and joyful pieces of art.

P: Yeah.

M: And I love them.

P: Yeah, I love the rabbit.

M & P: Laugh.

M: And so, before we finish, we have this great idea that we’d love to challenge our readers to do.

P: Mmm hmm.

M: And that Pete and I’ve been talking about. So, we’re in lockdown in Australia. But as soon as we’re out, we are going to start curating our own emotion museum exhibitions in our own homes and inviting our friends over to experience these emotions. And so, one of the things that I think is such shame is when people pull together or curate museum exhibitions, they tend to group their exhibitions around things like the period or the medium. It might be all sculptures. It might be all oil on canvas, etcetera, or it might be genre, so it could all be postmodern art.

P: Mmm.

M: And what I love about this is that you’re curating items around, an emotion that you want others to feel.

P: Mmm.

M: And I think we have just decided, and we’re gonna be inviting our friends as well, to pick some of these emotions out of a hat and bring friends over to experience that emotion in a way that is subjective and means something to you but that hopefully you can share with others and you can add music, you can add movies, you could add performances of any kind, artistic performances, as well as do something just as cheap as printing off some prints and hanging them up on the wall to help people feel these emotions.

P: Love it. Very immersive.

M: That’s what I love. As far as your own portfolio goes. If you pick one of those emotions or all 10 and create them, make sure that you go back to them over time and look at them again so that you can re-experience the emotion that goes with that. And it’s something that we’re doing less of nowadays, but it is very important.

P: Yes, tangible. Having something tangible to actually trigger those memories and reflect.

M: Yep, and it’s something that if you are in lockdown, you can still do.

P: Mmm.

M: So, on that note, we’re going to wrap up.

P: Laugh, homework people! Let us know how you go.

M: Do your homework!

P & M: Laugh!

M: And we might actually pay some photos of some of the things in both of our portfolios for everyone to see.

P: Yes.

M: All right. Thank you for joining us, and we’ll see you again next week.

P: Have a happy week.

[Happy exit music – background] 

M: Thanks for joining us today if you want to hear more, please remember to subscribe and like this podcast and remember you can find us at www.marieskelton.com, where you can also send in questions or propose a topic. 

P: And if you like our little show, we would absolutely love for you to leave a comment or rating to help us out. 

M: Until next time. 

M & P: Choose happiness.  

[Exit music fadeout] 

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