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Has COVID-19 Taught us How to Be Happy? (E60)

by

Happiness for Cynics podcast

This week Marie and Pete discuss how COVID has impacted our happiness levels, and has taught us how to be happy in spite of adversity. 

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: Okay, so today we are looking at what COVID has taught us about how to be happy.

P: Who would think that COVID would be linked to our happiness levels.

M: Well, you know, teaching us things about happiness. I think that this is the big wake up call that we’ve been needing around the world.

P: To make us focus on a mental health, just a global pandemic.

M: Well, this is the best… You couldn’t do this in a scientific study; Make some people get a disease and others not just to see what happens to their mental health.

P: Laugh! Yes. The ethical reasoning is mind boggling.

M: Laugh, exactly. It is the biggest and best way to look at resilience and mental health. Obviously, you would never wish this on anyone.

P: Of course not, no.

M: But what we can learn from it is extensive.

P: Well, this is very true. And this is what happened after the 1917 [1918-19] Spanish flu experiences. The society learned a lot.

M: Yep.

P: They learned a lot of lessons on how to cope with bacterial infections and control mechanisms and –

M: Washing your hands.

P: Yeah, all those basic reminders, I guess.

M: Yeah.

P: So yeah, yeah. I guess it’s time to learn the lessons.

M: Absolutely. And we’ve been going through it and feeling it, and I really hope that this is the kick up the butt that the world needs to really start to focus on well being.

P: Laugh. Well, if we’re looking at this report, it would seem that way.

M: Yes.

P: We are looking at the World Happiness Report – Laughter!

M: Laugh.

P: A cat just flew across my computer.

M & P: Laughter.

M: I was going to lock them out of the room.

P: Laugh.

M: I didn’t… I’m learning my lesson.

P & M: Laughter.

P: Okay, so today we’re actually looking at the second World Happiness Report.

M: Oh, no!

P: No, there’s more.

M: Many, many of them.

P: This is our second, laugh.

M: Yes. So, when we first kicked off last year, we did an episode on the Global Happiness Report findings and the 2021 Global Happiness Report Findings have just been released in time for World Happiness Day. So last week for us.

P: Mmm hmm.

M: And we’re able now to look at all of that data from the previous decade and compare it to this year’s data (from 2020) and really look at how COVID has impacted our happiness levels around the world. So it’s a great tool for us to look at what’s changed.

P: Yes.

M: And so there’s a lot that hasn’t changed. Let’s just start there.

P: Yes.

M: So Finland again forth year in a row.

P: Oh the Finnish, they’re all running around, clapping their little, what do they wear there? Wearing clogs?

M: Yeah, I don’t know.

P: They’ve got little bootie things.

M: Ok. I just see them as being very cold.

P: Laugh.

M: So, this report is compiled by the U.N. Sustainable Development solution, and it’s an annual report, and it ranks about 150,149 countries based on:

  • Gross domestic product per person. So how much money do you have and all the well-being indicators that go with having some money.
  • Healthy life expectancy. So how long you going to live
  • And the opinions of residents.

So it asks respondents to indicate on scale of 1 to 10 how much social support they feel they have if something goes wrong, their freedom to make their own life choices. That’s about autonomy, their sense of how corrupt their society is and how generous they are.

P: Oooh.

M: We’ve spoken a lot about generosity and gratitude and things like that as well.

P: Yes.

M: So the top 10 countries in 2021.

P: De de de de!  We have on top,

1. Finland! Yay!

M: Wooh!

P: Do we have the Finnish National Anthem? Can we play it now?

[Finnish National Anthem – 10 second exert]

P: Laugh, followed very closely by,

2. Denmark; and

3. Switzerland.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: It’s the Scandinavians, they always seem to be on top. And then

4. Iceland.

P: Oddly enough, all the core countries.

5. The Netherlands.

6. Norway; and

7. Sweden.

P: Again, we’re staying up around Scandinavians.

8. Luxembourg.

9. New Zealand!

M: Whoop, whoop!

P: Go the Kiwis! And

10. Austria.

P: Random, Austria?

M: Well again, not very far from all the other countries up there.

P: I guess so, yeah.

M: And so, as we said before, it’s the fourth year that Finland has come out on top.

P: Mmm, yeah. They must be doing something right.

M: Some other noteworthy countries. The US, which was at number 13, five years ago, has slipped from 18th to19th place, so they’ve been slowly declining over the last half decade, and we really have seen a huge decline in the South American countries.

P: Yeah.

M: So, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico all became significantly less happy in 2020.

P: We’ll talk about the reasons why about that later.

M: Yep.

P: But interesting, the Latino countries are not doing so well.

M: No, not at all. And a lot of Asian countries are, just sort of in the mix in the middle. But definitely they’re not leading the pack. It is Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.

P: Hmm.

M: They’re all doing an amazing job and New Zealand.

P: Yeah, although I do find it interesting. I was flicking through the report. They did say that the Asia Pacific region is one of the top regions in terms of dealing with the COVID response.

M: Yes, and that is a factor that we’ll come to in a little bit. Is how countries have dealt with COVID.

P: Yes.

M: So it is worth saying, though, that you would think that happiness levels may have dropped in 2020.

P: I would… yes. Overall, I would say yes. I think some people have actually fared well, but you’d have to put it on an aggregate and I would say on average yes.

M: So not substantially in anyway. So, the numbers are still pretty consistent with the year before. So that is that I thought that was a bit surprising.

P: Mmm.

M: There was, however, periodic dips.

P: Yep.

M: So when everyone first went into lock down, women in particular didn’t fare particularly well, but overall, lots of people didn’t fare well for that moment.

P: Mmm.

M: But if you look at the full year and obviously these questions are looking much more broadly at life satisfaction rather than that moment in time, how are we faring today? Overall, people were faring about the same as in 2019 for happiness levels, which I thought was a bit surprising.

P: Yeah. Look, sometimes having issues and having a challenging time of it actually makes you relatively more understanding and grateful for what you do have.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: So that in and of itself, we talked about gratefulness a lot. Making you feel grateful is going to make you feel a bit more contented and happy because you get away from the materialistic products and the big, flashy cars and the overseas trips and it comes down to ‘ah, I have people around me that I’m enjoying and I have food in my belly and they can enjoy my home, home, lifestyle and things like that.

M: Mmm hmm. Definitely.

P: So your daily happiness might actually go up because you’re more appreciative.

M: Well, there’s this and we’ve spoken about this before. Definitely if you have experienced trauma.

P: Mmm.

M: A lot of people bounce back and are even happier than pre-trauma.

P: Yes, the relative effect.

M: Yep. So that’s not what we’re going to talk about today.

P & M: Laugh!

P: Tangent!

M: But there are six lessons that we can take from the results, and why don’t you kick us off?

P: Oooh. Older people are happier!

M: Nice.

P: Go the silver hair-set!

M & P: Laugh.

P: Those wearing glasses and bald. Well done, ladies and gentlemen. The age profile of happiness before the pandemic struck, they were saying, was roughly a U shaped curve.

M: Yep.

P: People began their adult lives in a cheerful way and they became less happy in middle age.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: And then they got happy again at 50, and then if they got into the senior years, into the seventies and nineties bracket, they fell back into the doldrums. But now they’re saying, particularly the UK, which is an interesting one, that the pattern is on upward slope and that older people are actually a little bit happier.

M: And the young are less satisfied right now as well, aren’t they?

P: Yeah.

M: So it’s more like a line rather than a U shape.

P: Which is… is that a generational thing?

M: Well, the U shape has been around and being discussed for a while now.

P: Mmm.

M: And what we’re saying is during the pandemic, rather than a U shape and starting happy our younger generations have dropped, but our older generations have gotten happier, which is a bit counterintuitive because the older generations the most risk of dying from COVID.

P: I guess so, but there’s a relative understanding there as-well, and maybe there’s a relative resilience in there with the older generation and let’s face it, if they’re if they’re around the nineties then they went through the Depression and the post war era and stuff like that. So maybe those lessons that they learned in those days have come back to serve them well in a global pandemic such as COVID.

M: Or maybe they’re happy that they’re not the ones that have passed.

P: Very true.

M: Maybe they’re grateful for their lives.

P: Yeah maybe.

M: So the next one or next lesson to be learned is that countries in which governments are seen to have not done as well with COVID have slipped.

P: This doesn’t surprise me, laugh.

M: Yes, and the UK and the US are the two biggest examples of this.

P: Oh, huge!

M: So, one of the co-authors of the report, Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs said, quote “We find year after year that life satisfaction is reported to be happiest in the social democracies of northern Europe. People feel secure in those countries, so trust is high. The government is seen to be credible and honest, and trust in each other is high.”

P: Mmm.

M: Also, people’s perception of how their country was handling the pandemic contributed to an overall rise in well-being.

P: Hmm.

M: So several Asian countries fared better than they had in last year’s rankings; China moved to 84th place to… from 94th [to 84th]. So they moved up 10 spots because of their handling of the pandemic.

P: Yeah, wow.

M: We assume. And countries like Finland, Iceland, New Zealand, who I have to say I kind of had an advantage if you’re an island, laugh.

P: If you’re a small island, you [just] close the borders. I mean, even Australia, we fared well because of that fact, we could close off the borders and say ‘sorry you’re not coming across.’

M: Absolutely.

P: We are our own little place down here and put the fences up.

M: Yes, absolutely. So, countries which have managed COVID and managed keep COVID levels low, have happier residents.

P: Yeah, I’d easily believe that when you’ve got faith in the higher power, especially when you’re relying on them in an international crisis. You’re relying on leadership. And even if you don’t necessarily agree with the leadership before that situation happens, if there is a response, if there is communication and clear communication and daily steps being made, then yes, you would have more faith in the powers that be and that’s got to make you feel more secure and you know the hierarchy of needs, we need security it’s number 3?

M: Yep… Oh don’t ask me.

P: Talk to Maslow, I know who he is now.

M & P: Laugh.

P: That little pyramid, laugh.

M: So, look I think that’s a bit of a no-brainer the countries that are having lower death rates and lower infection rates are happier.

P: Mmm. Maybe that’s a thing about the Latino countries. I mean you look at the Brazil example of the government there just how, how tense it is with the entire population and possibly also with Colombia and Mexico.

M: Yeah, so we mentioned before Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico have all dropped.

P: Mmm.

M: Definitely.

P: Staying with the country theme let’s move on to number three. Countries with a strong capitalist culture are not faring well. Down with capitalism.

M: Mmm.

P: Is this the anarchists making a play?

M & P: Laugh!

P: I’m expecting costumes to come out with the, you know, V for Vendetta.

M: Laugh.

P: That’s going to start, wearing red.

Your favourite author, Sonja Lyubomirsky, professor of psychology at the University of California at Riverside, has noted that, for example, in the American culture, one of the capitalist leaders of the world, prizes of and big signs of wealth, big houses, big cars, multiple cars, they rely on this more in America than in other countries and that leads her to assume, I’m going to say assume or to cite that ‘material things don’t make us happy.’

M: It’s a fair assumption, but it’s back by research. Absolutely.

P: Oh, well we believe it then, laugh.

M: We do.

P: Laugh!

M: We’ve spoken about this before, material things don’t make us happy.

P: Yep.

M: So, if you look at the top 10, they’re all strong social democracies. Whereas capitalist culture, like in the US, where having big cars and blingy jewellery and flashy jobs and all the rest of it is far more prized, they’re not as happy.

P: It’s a temporary happiness that they get from those items. That long term happiness is lacking.

M: Yep.

P: Nothing like a crisis to make light of the holes that are in your fabric as it were.

M: Absolutely.

P: Ooh, I’m feeling allegorical.

M & P: Laugh.

M: Definitely. One of the other lessons we can learn from the report is that inequality continues to impact happiness.

P: I must say, I’m a bit surprised by this one.

M: Well, we’re spoken about how humans compare themselves to others, right?

P: Yep.

M: And how this can impact your happiness and so if you look at your neighbour and they seem to have everything.

P: Mmm hmm.

M: It’s really hard to be happy when you feel like you have nothing.

P: This is the social dilemma, the Facebook, Twitter, Instagram thing, yeah.

M: Absolutely, that makes it worse.

P: The wall of comparisons.

M: And you’re seeing other people through their social media, and it’s a fake life that you’re seeing.

P: The best moments.

M: Yeah, exactly. Not the real moments. Well, young people and women have been disproportionately impacted by COVID. So many have lost their jobs. In America, for instance, the unemployment rate for people between 20 to 24 shot up from 6.3% in February to 25.6% –

P: Wow!

M: – 2 months later.

P: Wow! That’s huge.

M: Now, last month had dropped back to about 10% but that’s a huge drop and for 1/4 of a demographic to be out of work that’s a huge impact.

P: Yep, and that’s gonna have a long term reaching effects into the…

M: Superannuation.

P: Yeah, everything as they get older, definitely.

M: Definitely. And then in a lot of richer countries or more well off countries. Women have also had a particularly hard time, so they often wake in sectors like hospitality, which have been shut down.

P: Mmm.

M: Also, when schools closed, many were stuck with more than their fair share of childcare responsibilities.

P: Yep, mmm hmm.

M: And so the inequality that we’ve seen because of COVID, particularly for women and young people but also across the board, has been really tough for a lot of people to bear. And looking at other generations or sexes or other demographics and seeing that you’ve been impacted when others haven’t is really tough and really hits your happiness levels.

P: Mmm.

M: So it’ll be really interesting to look, I find this this aspect fascinating, looking into how inequality is impacting certain demographics and looking at the systemic ways that our governments can help to address some of this inequality because this is an only a COVID issue.

P: No, this is gonna be my point is that this happens a lot when we have financial issues across national scales. Same thing happened in the GFC, a lot of women left work, left the workplace and went back to Home Care/Childcare and things like that and their often much more transient in nature in regards to employment.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: And we know we know this, and it’s interesting that this trend has still stayed.

M: Yep, and the question is, how is that impacting their long-term happiness, their life, happiness? And I think COVID’s finally shining a light on that because, as we’ve said before, happiness, impacts your well-being, your mental-health, physical health, your longevity.

P: Mmm.

M: It has so many wide sweeping impacts, and we’re actually seeing through this report the impact of losing your job or being unequally impacted by a global pandemic or a global financial crisis, or whatever issue of the day we’re dealing with is going to impact people unfairly.

P: Mmm. There is a counterpoint to that argument, which I’m going to throw at you Marie, and I’m getting my shields up ready to deflect, laugh.

M: I’m ready, I’m ready to fight!

P: Laugh!

M: I’ve got my gloves on.

P: I may get hit here people, laugh. The counterpoint of that argument is that women are much more willing to surrender their career choices -hear me out- and go back to child care and home care and things like that, possibly because it is a social expectation that’s placed upon them. But I would like to see the data on how many women make that choice because they do want to be happier. They make the choice to return to not being in a career and prefer to support the other person. I’m wondering if that is part of the equation.

M: I think there are some women who choose, and that’s their right, there are far more who don’t choose it, but because they’ve got to push the baby out –

P: Yep.

M: – and recover from that.

P: This is what I mean.

M: They have no choice and therefore they have to take time off work, and that impacts their ability to save superannuation.

P: Mmm.

M: It also is the only way that the family can survive because a lot of men don’t have paternity leave, and so they’re the only ones that can get an income.

P: It’s a policy issue.

M: Yeah, it’s a systemic issue, and I’d say yes, there are some women who would like to stay home and look after their kids. However, there are many who don’t and they’re stuck with no choice. And that’s the problem.

P: Ok.

M: And not only that when they do finally have the opportunity to go back to work, they are starting from scratch, they’re struggling to find work.

P: They’re at a disadvantage.

M: They often can only find part time work or they have to look for part time work because they still have to look after the kids.

P: Yep.

M: And the man in the relationship has continued to build a career, and they’re so far behind that it doesn’t make sense for the family, for them to be the full time breadwinner and the man to be the part time carer.

P: Mmm.

M: So the system just keeps perpetuating that loss off income and career progression for a good 10 years, or however long it takes until you feel comfortable that kids can walk home from school by themselves.

P: Mmm, yeah. I still I still think that there is a demographic in there that make the call, they don’t want the career choice they actually prefer ‘No, I don’t want the stress of that’ because they still have to take care of Children.

M: And I’d say there’s just as many of them as there are men and the men have no choice to do that. For us women that is the only choice a lot of the time.

P: Mmm, ok.

M: Because the system’s stacked against us and there’s a lot of women who, as we’ve mentioned before, would like to have purpose and meaning in their life that isn’t tied to someone else’s happiness.

P: Of course.

M: Any way I could be on my high horse for a very long time, laugh.

P: I just wanted to get it out there, because I was genuinely shocked when I saw the inequality towards women was a COVID response.

M: Yep.  

P: In response to COVID. But I was surprised by that, because I would say that generally speaking, I find women more resilient in terms of emotional responses to issues.

M: Well, I think this next one, we’re going to have to speed this up and wrap it up.

P: Oops, sorry.

M: This next one will actually give the counter argument to that.

P: Ok.

M: So why don’t you drop in this next one?

P: Alright, so the next one is that people who are more social had greater drops in happiness. So, people who were going out and [they’re] the life of the party, the social butterflies, the ones who are coordinating all the friends and have lots of friends, fared far worse in COVID than those who were perhaps a little bit more stringent with their socialising.

We have a study from Britain by Ben Etheridge and that Lisa Spantig, both from the University of Essex, that found that again, women without least four close friends slumped more than anyone during the spring in 2020 lock down and that people who are used to seeing a lot of friends, here we go again with the young people, they suffered really badly –

M: Young people and women.

P: – in this experience.

M: So back to your point about women, the drop in social contacts could have also been exacerbating things. Definitely.

P: Mmm, yes.

M: And that would have been impacted again, unequally compared to men who had less friends, in general. Now we’re definitely stereotyping and generalising here.

P: Yeah.

M: But definitely young people and women again would have been exacerbated by lockdowns.

P: And that comes back again to that other point about the youth having to really struggle through this and they really are at a disadvantage. As you said, those figures in the job market in the US that puts them back behind the eight ball for another 10 years.

M: Yep.

P: Add on to that the social impacts of having their friendship circle [cut], because that’s when you make friends in your twenties and you’re meeting people who are outside of your normal sphere. You know, you’ve moved out of home, you’ve gone to university, you’ve gone to new places. Yeah, not meeting people at that point that could have a real social impact 10, 20 years down the track.

M: Yes. Absolutely. All right, well, we’ll have to end there. But it was –

P: An interesting one.

M: – definitely an interesting one, yep. Laugh. And sorry for the rant on the women’s rights.

P: No, no. I want to get your response, I just wanted to throw that one at you.

M: Oh! Yep.

P: Laugh, I could see – Laugh!

M: I’m still biting my tongue, Pete. Laugh!

P: Yeah, I’m just ready for a back hander, laugh.

M: We’ll do that off air, laugh. All right. Thanks for joining us today and we’ll see you next 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]

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Toxic Positivity (E56)

by

Happiness for Cynics podcast

This week Marie and Pete discuss Toxic Positivity, what the latest research shows, and how you can retrain your brain for happiness. 

Show notes

During the Podcast, Marie mentions research conducted in regard to toxic happiness expectations in the workplace: The Research We’ve Ignored About Happiness at Work by André Spicer and Carl Cederström. Published in Harvard Business Review.

Towards the end of the podcast Pete talks about two different ballet terms: Penché is a classical ballet term meaning “leaning.” Pirouette is a classical ballet term meaning “spin.”

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 we’re kind of funny.

[Intro music fadeout]

M: So today we’re talking about [sweet voice] toxic positivity.

P: Laugh. I love it that you say it that way.

M: Laugh.

P: This is actually for all of the cynics, you know, in our listeners. It’s for the people that are like ‘Oh my God, it’s so hard to be happy!’

M: Or the people who don’t love Clueless.

P: I missed that reference. It’s another movie I haven’t seen.

M: Oh my goodness!

P: I know, I know.

M: Or Legally blonde?

P: Oh, laugh. Bend and snap, hello?

M: Uh huh! Exactly.

P: Laugh!

M: I’m going to channel my inner Legally blonde and not be cynical for once I think on this one.

P: You should be on this one because this is a cynical perspective.

M: Laugh.

P: So do you feel the pressure to be positive?

M: Oh, absolutely. No one wants to hear your shit.

P: Laugh.

M: They don’t, people are so busy and dealing with so much of their own stuff that I feel that you have, If you’re lucky, one or two people that you can actually honestly really say ‘no, I’m not doing well today’ to.

P: Mmm.

M: And not feel the need to just say ‘yeah, I’m fine’ or ‘yeah, I’m good’, that kind of thing in general.

P: The other flip side of that, is that there’s a pressure on people [exuberant voice] ‘to be bouncy, and to be open, and to be fabulous!’ and that’s just really hard work. So for some people who are out there, that approach of being the positive person, doing the cue cards, doing the positive affirmations in the mirror every morning and Jigging yourself up and going ‘Yeah, bam, bam, bam, I’m ready to go.’ Some people just don’t do that and it doesn’t work.

M: Well it does. If you do it right.

P: Mmm.

M: And it is not. It is not the be all and end all.

P: No.

M: And there was so much work that goes on behind it. So, I think where a lot of people are going wrong with positive affirmations and positivity is that they think that’s all you need to do to be happy, –

P: Definitely not.

M: – and it’s definitely.

P: [Singing voice] The science says no, laugh. So if we’re going to talk science, we’re going to talk about a study done in 2010, by Senay, Albarracín & Noguchi from the University of Illinois and South Misspissisi.

M: Misspissisi? Mississippi, [spelling] Miss-iss-ipp-i.

P: Laugh, Mississippi sorry. This talks about what needs to go on behind that positive psychology.

M: Yes.

P: And the cue cards and the positive affirmations, that is what they call a blanket approach. And for some of us that works, for some of us who are in reasonably good mental health, that approach works because you’re jigging yourself up and you’re reinforcing to yourself ‘I’m a good person; I am going to be this person today; I’m going to be a good money saver today.’

But for some of us, that doesn’t work because it isn’t coming from an authentic place and if positive affirmations are just reinforced by externalisation; So cue cards, doing, chanting or doing the mirror exercise. It’s not coming from a place of dedicated and deep-seated security, and therefore that actually creates more mental health issues than it solves.

M: So, I absolutely agree, because I’m playing the positive card here.

P & M: Laugh.

M: But I do, however, think that there is a whole school of thought proven scientifically researched about scanning your environment for positive things. And while I agree that you can’t lie to yourself.

P: Mmm.

M: You can’t say I’m a supermodel, I’m a supermodel, I’m a supermodel in the mirror every morning and deep down, know that you’re not and expect for you to live in this happy rose coloured glasses world.

P: Yep, no.

M: You can’t do that. However, we are programmed to look for the negative and to make sure that we notice the lion who might eat us over the pretty rainbow.

P: Yep.

M: And so, by focusing on looking out for the good things, we can recondition our minds to notice good things more. So gratitude journals, positive affirmations, all of those other things that help you to balance out what is a negative bias in our brains anyway can make you happier because you notice what you have. You become more grateful for what you do have. But again, I 100% agree with what you and then this res[earch], these researchers are saying, you can’t lie to yourself.

P: No, and I think that’s the essential argument. I agree with you wholeheartedly about what you’re saying in terms of the use of positive psychology tools and they do work. We know that they do work. We’ve talked about that at length.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: I guess what they’re talking about here is more specifically about using the concept of toxic positivity is the positivity peer pressure.

M: Yep.

P: You need to be doing this stuff to make yourself happy. But if you’re one of those people that were those positive affirmations doesn’t come from a true place. You’re actually going to do the reverse. You’re going to send yourself into a downward spiral, and it’s not gonna work.

M: Well, we had an episode a few months back on authenticity and it’s the disconnect that causes the problem right?

P: Yeah, exactly.

M: We’re seeing a lot of people in the LGBTIQ community have that disconnect, particularly as teenagers before they’ve come out.

P: Mmm.

M: And that is what causes so much pain and heartbreak and mental health issues as well, along with it.

P: Yep.

M: So absolutely, I agree with you there. The other thing that I find to be a cause of a lot of this not working is that the positive psychology movement, it’s a movement, and over the last 30 years, people have really embraced a lot of these concepts without having done masters and PhDs and full study into it and so –

P: I’m putting my hand up.

M: Laugh!

P: I’m a total embracer, I jumped in.

M: Yeah, And so what that means is for people who haven’t looked into it deeply; It’s a slogan on a T shirt or a banner on a website or a catchphrase from a celebrity and without understanding what’s behind it, it leads to the wrong behaviours.

P: Absolutely, you have to do the work.

M: And I think that is to blame.

P: You have to do the work people, we keep saying this, laugh.

M: But you’ve got to understand what the work is behind it. And so, I think we’ve got a whole lot of people who are putting a smile on their face without understanding why and who are trying to be bubbly because they want to be happy, but without putting in all the work behind that.

P: And they’re the people that we’re speaking to here, I mean, these are people that are risk of that positive peer pressure.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: It’s like ‘I have to be happy, I have to be happy, I have to put a smile on my face and just get on with life when really inside I’m dying.’

M: Yep.

P: And for those people it needs, you need to do a little bit more work. You need to do more investigation and what these researchers have come up with is that you need to be not in an inner war with your subconscious. If you’re doing the positivity and doing the exercises without understanding the real meaning behind it, what you’re training your mind to do, which is exactly what you’ve just clocked Marie, is your searching for the examples of all the times that you haven’t been bubbly.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: You haven’t been the supermodel, you haven’t been the athletics sports star.

M: You didn’t get the promotion.

P: You start training that negativity coming in.

M: You didn’t get a seat on the bus, all that stuff.

P: So how to get past that is to acknowledge and identify which thoughts are limiting and which ones are empowering and how to actually do that work to go back and find the reasons behind what is the incongruent factor, if you’re saying ‘I want to be a good money saver’ and you just keep spending money all the time, it’s understanding the reasons behind that.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: So with that idea in mind, it’s about going back and seeing what is the reason behind [the behaviour]. And what the researchers say here is ‘ask a better question.’

M: It all comes down to self-awareness, you’ve got to do the work to begin with.

P: It does.

M: Don’t you?

P: Yeah.

M: That’s again why journaling is so powerful. Because sometimes you just haven’t thought to think about stuff.

P: Mmm. You haven’t stopped, quieted the mind. And you’re not allowing those thoughts to drop in and go ‘hang on, what are you? You little red devil on my shoulder? Where’s the little white one? I want the white one.’

M: Mmm hmm. ‘Why do I always say yes to my boss when he asks me to work late? But other people go home on time, why do I do that?’ And then why do I end up burned out? You know, there’s plenty and plenty of examples for people for behaviour that they may not have reflected on.

P: Yeah, and a lot of it comes under self-limiting beliefs.

M: Yes.

P: So that’s where you come back to doing some belief, work and journaling and coordinating. That is a really good way of doing that work that we keep talking about. For those who haven’t done that, it is about self-beliefs being true for yourself.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: And finding the ability to achieve or to look at the thoughts that air perhaps blocks to you, achieving that goal or that desire, or that positive affirmation that you want to achieve.

M: Yep and I think once you’ve done the work to understand yourself …, and just because you understand something doesn’t mean it’s easy to fix.

P: Yeah.

M: Or going to, laugh.

P: Laugh.

M: But once you’ve done that, it all boils down to habits. And there’s a great book out at the moment called Atomic Habits, which really helps to break down how you can make these positive psychology interventions or happiness habits stick in your life because it is something that humans are really bad at doing.

P: Oh, interesting.

M: We’re really bad at starting exercise programs, diets, everything that you might want to do. If you don’t make it a habit and you don’t know how to make it a habit in your life, you’re likely to fail at it.

P: Absolutely, yeah. And the first, is it seven days or seven tries of it you have to get through to make it a habit?

M: A lot of the time, yes, but also just make it really easy. So you’re almost tripping yourself over it. Yeah, make it part of a routine and reward yourself at the end so you can’t have breakfast until you’ve done 10 sit ups. Super simple.

P: Yep.

M: Wake up in the morning you can’t have your coffee until you’ve done 10 sit ups. And a year later, you’re going to find that you’re doing 30 sit ups every morning and you’ve got abs, you know, like whatever it is.

P: That was my approach with yoga, actually, because I had a period where I didn’t do yoga. When I first came back to Sydney after London and I was finished dancing so I was like ‘Ha ha! I don’t need to do yoga anymore, I’m going to sleep in.

M: Laugh.

P: And then I was like I’m gonna jump back on the bandwagon and you know, this is tough, six am yoga, oof. And so I decided not to do a full practise. I was like I’ll just to 10 minutes.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: And sure enough, after about two weeks of doing 10 minutes that turned into 20 which turned into 30 and then you’re back on the horse.

M: Yep. And if you can trick your mind into getting the reward of your morning coffee or your breakfast or whatever it is that you can look forward to, just going to the gym isn’t motivation enough for most of us. It’s something you know you should do for a lot of us. Actually, I’m going to say most, there’s definitely gym junkies, and there’s people who love their exercise. But there’s a large proportion of the population who do exercise because they should.

P: Yeah true.

M: Or who just don’t exercise.

P: Yeah, I’ll give you that.

M: Right? And so finding ways to integrate it into your life in ways that aren’t going to scare you off.

P: Mmm.

M: That a quick and easy and that you get something at the end, which you enjoy. For instance, walking on the treadmill for 20 minutes and listen to your favourite podcast.

P & M: Laughter!

P: I’ve got this image of all these people on treadmills listening to the Happiness for Cynics podcast all laughing at precisely the same time.

M: Laugh.

P: That would be fun.

M: I love it. You know reward yourself with a TV show after you’ve done whatever it is you’re trying to do.

P: Oh yeah, I agree. One thing I do want to clock, or circle back to is that ability of the question asking. So, when we have these thoughts that pop into our heads of like ‘Oh, am I eating the cookie, don’t eat the cookie!’ That’s not the best way to approach. So, if you’re trying to not eat the cookie, it’s not the statement of the self-limiting belief of ‘don’t eat the cookie. Do not, do not, do not!’ Ask the question better. Why do you want the cookie?

M: Just eat the cookie!

P: Laugh!

M: And wash it down with a martini.

P: Laugh, yeah, yeah.

M: Laugh.

P: I’m bringing it back, laugh.

M: Darn it, we’re meant to be encouraging self-control aren’t we?

P: So going back to the question, why are we eating the cookie?

M: Because it tastes so good.

P: Yeah, well that’s part of it but why does it taste so good?

M: Sugar!

P: And why do you want sugar?

M: Because sugar tastes so good.

P: Aahh.

M: This is a very circular argument.

P: But there’s a better answer there. This is the exercise. Keep asking the question until you come up with the right answer.

M: Why, why, why?

P: That’s a path to actually doing the work that we keep talking about, which can highlight some of those self-limiting beliefs and then expose you to being able to look in the mirror and go, ‘today, I’m not going to eat the cookie’, and you believe it because you know what’s behind the… You know what the reasoning behind it is.

M: Okay…

P: Laugh.

M: I like cookies though.

P: Well, you’re allowed to have cookies, it’s okay. Laugh.

M: So, toxic positivity. I think the other part of this that we touched on briefly at the beginning is our fear that others just don’t want to hear about our problems.

P: Mmm.

M: And so we have to be positive, and I think that’s a real shame. And it’s something that society is slowly opening up to and changing. So, Brené Brown does a lot of talking about vulnerability and the power of vulnerability. And there’s been a big, shift in corporate leadership communications about being honest and authentic and being a bit vulnerable, and how that bonds people and the value of that, because we all see through corporate BS.

P: Yep.

M: Right, we know when the leader hasn’t written their email, the coms team wrote it for them.

P: He he.

M: We know when the speech writer wrote this speech for the prime minister or president or whoever, and they haven’t even looked at the notes, they’re just reading it off [the screen]. We know when it’s not them right, and so that creates a barrier between people, when there is that in-authenticity.

P: Definitely.

M: And by not ever sharing that we’re feeling down or low or just not great today, that’s creating that distance between people. By never being vulnerable with your co-workers and just saying ‘I had a shit night, like I didn’t sleep well, the kids were up all night.’

P: Yep.

M: Or, you know, ‘I get migraines and I had a migraine yesterday, and I just feel like crap today.’

P: Yep.

M: Without sharing those things or you know, bigger things that can be really hard without sharing those things, we’re creating weak teams at work and loose bonds with the people that we see day in, day out, and that’s a real shame.

P: It’s that ability to not feel the pressure to be 100% happy 100% of the time.

M: Absolutely.

P: And that isn’t sustainable. As much as being 100% negative all the time is not sustainable. Neither is being 100% happy. You’ve gotta have those ebbs and flows. You’ve gotta have those ups and downs. Some of us express those a little bit more emotionally than others.

M: Laugh. A little bit more openly than others.

P: Laugh. But that’s okay. And as you said, you can choose your people. You can choose you one or two people to go, ‘you know what? The cat died last night and I’m feeling crap.’

M: Yep.

P: So just leave me in my corner for today, I’ll bounce back tomorrow.

M: Or ‘I need a day.’

P: Yep.

M: ‘I need to cancel my meetings – or my clients or whatever it is – I just can’t cope with today.’

P: Yep.

M: And I think we need to be able to say that openly and have trust that we’ll get support if we say that to our colleagues and bosses.

P: That’s very true, yeah. And that comes from the leadership as well.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: And having permission.

M: And it comes from leaders who say to their teams ‘I’m taking the day and role modelling that as well.

P: Yeah. So the other thing that I think we need to talk about is the inner saboteur.

M: Ooh.

P: Your inner voice, laugh.

M: Oh, I hate my inner saboteur!

P: Laugh!

M: Fred.

P: Fred? You have a name? Ooh I like it.

M: Did you ever watch Drop Dead Fred.

P: No.

M: Oh…

P: Laugh.

M: You should.

P: Ok, laugh. Am I going to understand you better?

M: Fred was the invisible friend, laugh.

P: Oh, righto. So you’re “Fred” can be your worst enemy in terms of that toxic positivity, because he could be the one that’s actually pressuring you, to be happy all the time.

M: Mmm.

P: Put it out there, just take it off and come out and be Taylor Swift, laugh.

M: And I think there is always pressure to move on, to get through it, to suck it up.

P: Yep.

M: You know. Put your big girl panties on as well.

P: And that’s the inner voice coming out as well. That’s our self-judgement coming out and sometimes we need to let go of that and recognise when it’s… when we’re creating our own drama, when we’re creating, if you’re that creative mind or that imaginative state that could be a really negative space because you create issues and you create scenarios that have never occurred, and you start believing them. Your body starts registering them and your brain, starts making cases for them, and that could be really dangerous space to be.

So if you find yourself getting a little bit too self-judgmental, you need to shake yourself out of that habit on often that come down to physicality or going and just being distracted. We’ve talked about awe before, going for a bush walk and things like that or being in front the ocean. Take yourself out of the space where that inner saboteur has the power and try to enjoy the moment as it were, or enjoy a moment.

M: We also talked about being kind to others, but I don’t think we talk enough in our society without being kind to yourself. And compassionate with yourself.

P: And that is what the positive psychology movement is all about, isn’t it?

M: Yep.

P: There’s a lot of that research out there that says that that’s a good and beneficial thing to do.

M: And if you need to cry or you need to be in a shitty mood for an hour, a day, or a week or a year, because something that bad has happened, then you need to take the time and forgive yourself for needing the time.

P: Yep.

M: You don’t actually even need to forgive yourself. You just need to know that it’s okay to take however much time you need to move through the stages of grief or sadness or anger, or whatever it is that you need to do.

P: Definitely.

M: There’s one last study that I did want to mention, and it’s only just popped into my mind, so I’ll have to dig it out and pop it in the show notes later.

P & M: Laugh.

M: But there’s been some research done recently and, particularly in America, the push for service people to always provide service with a smile and the impact that that has on their lives outside of work.

P: Oh, yes! Oh, I like this one.

M: And pretty much if you expect your employees, for the eight hours a day that they come in and work at Walmart or Kmart or Target or wherever it is, to put a smile on their face for every single customer that work walks in the door and when they’re interacting with other workers in the store, then you are draining their emotional capital.

P: Absolutely.

M: Draining it.

P: Oh yeah.

M: And those people struggle to enjoy their lives outside of work. It actually makes them sadder.

P: Yep.

M: It impacts their mental health.

P: Oh I so believe in that that.

M: Yep.

P: And it comes out across as fake. I mean, you just come out of that experience going, ‘What was that? That was weird.’

M: Mmm hmm.

P: This poor person is probably having a terrible day. And yet they’ve got to go ‘thanks for shopping at Wal Mart’. I think that’s where it might be a little bit different culturally, Marie. You might have a better perspective on this Marie of Australia versus America. Do we have more permission to be less cheerful in Australia?

M: I think we have permission to be a bit more authentic. So we open with a smile. But it’s not over the top happy.

P: Yeah, right.

M: Yeah, either way, forcing employees for eight hours a day to be happy rather than neutral, in some instances, which is what most people tend to be. A lot of the time has negative impacts, so there’s definitely, I’m absolutely sure that there will be more research into that and looking at whether or not it’s even cruel and unusual punishment to expect people to do it, you know.

P: Definitely, oh gosh yeah. But there are ways around that. There are creative ways around that. It’s up to, again, team leaders and people in those responsible positions to shake it up and make the workplace little bit fun. I mean, one of my, one of my things I love to do at my workplace is I like pulling out a pirouette of a penché as you walk past someone in the corridor and Elisa, if you’re listening, we’ve done it before. We’ll be walking past each other in the clinic, and I’ll just grab her and twirl her and it just adds that little buoyancy hit for the day, and she’s probably going in and working with someone who’s really going through an emotional thing.

M: Mmm.

P: There’s a lot of stuff going on, every now and then everybody needs a lift.

M: Yep.

P: And if you can be that person, I encourage you. Do something crazy. Do something unexpected. Make everybody smile.

M: Have a little bit of fun or playfulness.

P: Oh, it’s so important. And if that makes you feel stupid in front of someone else, I say do it!

M: All right. On that note, we’ll wrap it up.

P: Do your penché’s people.

M & P: Laugh.

P: If you don’t know what that is, I’ll put it in the show notes. Laugh.

[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.

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