podcast

Self-Compassion and Being Kind to Yourself (E12)

06/04/2020 by Marie

Happiness for Cynics podcast – episode 12

Self-compassion is about being aware of your self-talk and learning to be kinder to yourself. You may be surprised at the sorts of thing you say to yourself when you’re not paying attention!

Transcript

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

P: Hi there, I’m Peter Furness and I’m a manipulator of sore points, pusher of positivity and ‘movement prescriptor.’ Each week we bring you the latest news and research in the world of positive psychology otherwise known as happiness. Marie has a blog.

M: Sure do, so you can find all of these episodes as well as a lot of other resources and information at @marieskelton.com. So on to today’s episode, which is all about self-compassion.

[Happy music]

M: So today we’re going to talk about the importance of self-compassion. So Pete, can you help our listeners understand what we’re talking about here?

P: Self-compassion is the relationship of the self, let’s turn inward for a moment shall we.

M: This is going to be a fun episode [laugh].

P: It’s about self-talk, it’s about the friendship that you have with yourself. And it’s more than just being positive. It’s about understanding the relationship between negative and positive self-talk, and how we reinforce negative behaviours within ourselves. Being kind to yourself and having the ability to not judge yourself is really a prime issue around self-compassion.

M: Now, I think that from a cynics point of view, this is gonna be gold, [Laugh] because there are a lot of people out there who just want to say to millennials in particular suck it up, buttercup, right and get on with your life. And we never had this self-care, positive movement thing going on.

P: It was something for the hippies in the 60’s.

M: Not even that, they just took drugs and got on with life, right?

[Laughter]

M: So we are smack bang in the middle of what this podcast is all about. It’s breaking down the preconceived ideas about some of these positive psychology ideas. So really keen to understand the research behind this one. Definitely.

P: I think a big thing about it is that it’s not to be dismissive. Self-talk can be damaging. We can’t just dismiss this as little thoughts that we don’t listen to, because that’s really not dealing with the problem. Self-talk is there. It is something to be aware of. Those voices in your head, you should be listening to them and more importantly, we should be understanding why they’re there. Giving them some space and diving into that space and looking at it objectively, not judgmentally.

M: Yeah, and I think it’s also really important to say that we’re talking about people who are still in a healthy frame of mind and ,lot of people who’ve been on the flip side of mental health and who have suffered depression or who have ongoing chronic levels of depression, it can be really harmful to say to say to someone who’s struggling, you know, just think positively.

P: Yeah, just be cheery.

M: So we’re talking about how people who are in a healthy enough state of mind motivate themselves and how they get the best out of themselves in their life. And it’s worth saying that these practises can be helpful for people who perhaps are on the far deeper end of the spectrum. But they’re not, they’re not going to solve deep rooted issues.

P: No, that’s for others.

M: So, looking back in your life, have you had any moments where you had a lot of negative self-talk?

P: [Laughter] where do I begin… OK opening the Pandora’s Box. Self-criticism, it comes from many different places, and I think for myself, bless my lovely Mother. She was the eldest of 12 children in the outback of Australia. So Mom was the home care taker, she was in charge, looking after these kids when they were still having rations from the Second World War. They didn’t have a fridge, all that sort of stuff. So Mums upbringing and her introduction to ‘suck it up buttercup’, that was pretty strong in those days. Now she passed that onto us, me and my sister in different ways, and that’s self-criticism comes out from those childhood experiences sometimes. So what I picked up on that judgmental, suck it up, just get on with it, be tough, kind of mentality and that was really from my mom, bless her. Being aware of that, coming to that in a separate point in my life, I had to reflect on some of that and it’s interesting that that didn’t happen with me until much later it wasn’t until I got out of University that I really started looking at what those thoughts and processes were and how they came up. And being a… involved in a competitive field like dance, I came to dance late. All these kids had done ballet for 20 years before I even did my first class. So there was a lot of ways, one the coping mechanisms of getting through that was to convince myself you’re not good enough. You’ve got to work harder now That works to a certain point because it motivates you, use you a little bit of a kick up the arse and makes you drive hard. When you’re feeling a bit sorry for yourself. It’s like No, suck it up, get in there and keep going. Now that can be really positive but the damaging thing is when you learn those behaviours and you apply it to every situation. And I think that’s where it turns negative.

M: Yep, I think for me I had very similar thoughts going through my head when I went to the A.I.S., which is Australian Institute of Sport for overseas listeners. So I, like you, came to volleyball late, I first touched a volleyball when I was 14 and very quickly went from there to making the school team and making our state team and then being selected for a national junior team and then being offered the chance to train with the senior national team at A.I.S. and I had only been playing for less than a year.

P: wow

M: So coaches obviously saw raw talent and brought me in and the second I got there, I was so out of my league, [Laughter] I was so bad, so rather than a fight to be better mentality. I just constantly felt like I was letting the team down. I just didn’t cope. So I had this huge impostor syndrome and I look back now and I think I had the skill, but with a different mindset I could have taken that as a learning opportunity. I had grace and acceptance from the coaches, not necessarily from my teammates, but definitely I look back at the wasted opportunity that that was for me because of my negative self-talk and the fact that I did everything possible just not to get in everyone’s way and didn’t take that with two hands and run with it. So let’s talk about the research.

P: Of course, It’s all about research on this podcast. Everything has to be backed up scientifically.

M: [Laughter] Also self-compassion, It’s a bit wishy washy. We are talking about things that people just will flat out say they don’t believe in.

P: Absolutely. The word compassion immediately brings to mind images of Monks in robes and the Dalai Lama and all this negative stuff and it’s easy to just go, yeah not for me thanks.

M: Yeah

P: It’s an immediate block and I think that’s the big issue sometimes in turning it on, turning that term self-compassion on yourself. You’ve got to look back on you and be willing to go into that space all right, let’s look at this. Let’s really spend time self-analysing and really go internal for a while and for a lot of people that’s way to confronting.

M: Yeah, but I think the important thing is, do you want to be happy? That’s really what we’re talking about here and for some people who are used to self-analysing and who are very open with sharing their emotions and analysing their blockers and understanding their issues for someone who is completely shut off to that, they can want to be happy but have never have delved into that other side of the emotions.

So this could be a really hard things to, to start to do. But really, it comes down to just being more self-aware.

P: Yes, that’s part of it. Definitely.

M: Yeah, so let’s, let’s have a look at some of the research. Maybe we can sway some of the cynics out there.

[Laughter]

P: So it’s interesting that you bring up a sports reference Marie because the first piece of research I’ve got is actually from Dr. Christopher M. Carr, “Sport Psychology: Psychologic Issues and Applications (Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation Clinics of North America, 2006). Who’s a psychologist for sports such as the NBA and the NFL in America-

M: – oh, is that all…

[Laughter]

P: He wrote an article in 2006 Psychologic Issues and Applications, and he talks about athletes engaging in negative self-talk. So you see a player who’s frustrated, angry, anxious on court on the field they can’t get it right. They go into that negative space where they’re berating themselves. I’m thinking of tennis players here, like it’s the Nick Curious’s, even the Andre Agassi, when he was in his younger bouffant hair days, he went into those potholes of anger and frustration and yelling and stuff.

M: Mmm Hmm

P: What Carr talks about is that these emotional states that we get into challenge our breathing, they increase our muscular tension and they create a loss of concentration and focus. All of these factors results in a lowering of performance.

M: So I guess what we’re saying here is the emotional impact of that negative self- talk has a physiological impact that for athletes is really critical.

P: Yeah, if you can’t breathe, you can’t perform, you need that.

M: Yep

P: So Carr goes on to talk about the flip side of that talking about an athletes self-talk, being positive and relevant and he says that the resulting emotional experience at this stage is one of relaxation calmness, feeling centred. As a result, this turns good performance into a positive and increases your performing ability.

M: I guess for me, as an athlete, if you’re not feeling confident. How do you pretend to be confident?

P: Fake it ‘til you make it [laugh].

M: Is that what the research is showing here I guess.

P: Exactly, it’s about accessing that mindset, how do I calm myself down, bring myself back to my focus so I can control my breathing and then from there, from there come at the point, the game from a different perspective.

M: I’ll move on to some more research here, and I’m interested in how it applies to a work scenario as well [be]cause not all of us are athletes. There’s a book called ‘How We Work’, written by researcher and author Leah Weiss, and she talks about how again negative self-talk doesn’t help us and can actually make things worse. The research shows that self-criticism is linked to depression, loss of self-esteem, negative perfectionism, procrastination and rumination. And some might say that it helps them to be better and keep striving for excellence. But the research actually shows that it’s likely to compromise your goals and undermine your efforts in all aspects of life, from academic or health related efforts to personal or professional.

So again, it’s important to be able to reflect on what it is that you’re not confident or comfortable about

P: Yeah

M: and then be able to take the resulting negative self-talk and actively try and combat that.

P: I think the interesting part of that is undermining your efforts I think that for me really resonates because it’s subtle little changes that goes with that negative self-talk that is ultimately, it doesn’t create massive cheats in terms of your work performance but it undermines you and that’s not great for when you’re trying to deal with negotiations and trying to deal with, with different people in high tense situations where you’re making calculated decisions, you need to feel confident and in that way I think it does relate to the sport experience. You need to be in control and feel secure.

M: Yep, and there’s a whole body of research right now and a shift in thinking in corporate world’s about psychological safety and the importance of psychological safety. It’s a hot topic of the moment, and really, what we’re saying is it’s about everyone feeling that they have a role to play in the team and that they’re valued for their role and what they do in the team and it’s really tough if you don’t feel valued to then go out and perform your job and stop yourself from getting into that negative self-talk.

P: Absolutely

M: You know, [that] situation that means that you have to then focus on the positive self-talk. Now some of it can be grounded in real life. You might have some horrible colleagues.

[Laughter]

M: and they might not like you, right.

[Laughter]

M: And then it’s about fighting with yourself to be comfortable with your own self value and self-worth. And then other times it’s purely in your own head and that’s the other thing that you need to reflect on I think.

P: Being positive with that that state is again coming back to what we were talking about earlier. Have you done the investment? Having spent some time doing some self-reflection, and I think that those cynics out there who just dismiss it, and that was my Mum, emotions didn’t matter. One of her great quotes is ‘stress wasn’t around when I was young.’

M: [Laugh] See these are the people that we’re doing this podcast for.

P: Absolutely, yeah. ‘Don’t believe in stress doesn’t exist’ and she’s probably the most stressed out person I know.

[Laughter]

P: Poor Mum, I’m giving her a bit of a bashing here. [Laugh]

M: Your Mum I think is more indicative of an entire older generation who were taught that way.

P: Absolutely yes.

So practising self-compassion. Let’s bring it back.

M: So what, what are we talking about? What is practising self-compassion?

P: I think it’s different for every individual, but I think there’s some broad terms we can bring to the conversation and those are a combination of mindful awareness, self-kindness and a recognition about common humanity.

M: What, we’re all human and make mistakes. Is that what we’re talking about?

P: Essentially yes, not being too judgemental, understanding when someone has made a mistake and also taking responsibility for that. Putting your hand up and going ‘oh whoops, I did wrong.’

M: But then letting it go.

P: Exactly, yes and that’s the judgmental part coming into it. Trying not to be too judgemental. When you’re doing that self-reflection, it’s really important about not being too hard on yourself. Give yourself a break, give yourself some love. Be that understanding person that pat’s you on the shoulder and says “it’s OK”.

[Laughter]

M: So if you find yourself in a negative frame of mind and you want to work on some self-compassion. We’ve got three tips that you can try to put into practise.

Firstly, start journaling. So the first step to better understanding yourself and your negative self-talk is to fully grasp what’s going on. Take a couple of weeks and every evening, reflect on the day, and write down your negative and positive self-talk throughout the day.

Secondly, have a look at that over time. So once you’ve done your two weeks, have a look at all the things that you’ve been saying to yourself, find some patterns in there if you can and find what it is in your past that has led to this moment. Why are you saying these negative things to yourself?

Thirdly, once you’ve identified what it is you’re saying, why it is you’re saying it. Your job is to then give yourself some positive affirmations that you can use to combat the negative self-talk.

So once you’re aware of the problem, you’ve then got to shift your behaviour. So write down 2 to 3 things that will combat the negative things you’ve been saying. And every morning before you leave the house or if you’re walking in to work I want you to say these things out loud to yourself and keep up the journaling if you can, so that you can see whether you’re making any changes over time. So they’re the three things you can do to help get started on being more compassionate to yourself.

P: Another tip that I love and this is a bit of a creative one. I call it using the Dragon.

M: OK… I’m intrigued.

P: We’re going to go a bit linear on this one. Externalising the self. So have a conversation with yourself. But externalise it. So for me it came when my father passed away. I was having anxious moments after the funeral and so forth, getting through the grieving process and I invented a dragon and my little dragon sat in the top left corner of my room. And whenever I started to feel emotional or upset, I would reference the top left corner of my room and see my purple dragon and I’d have a little conversation with him. Now not everybody is going to be buying into this, this is all very creative, but for me –

M: – This is why you’re on this podcast with me. It balances us out.

P: [Laugh]!

M: Not to take anything away from any coping mechanism that helps someone deal with grief. I’m not making light of that at all, but I probably wouldn’t invent a dragon that’s all.

[Laughter]

P: It really helped me, it really helped me calm my breathing, bring myself back to centre and come at the situation at hand from a different perspective, because I felt like I had that buddy, that little guardian angel, that little totem, whatever it is a spirit guide some people might use all those sorts of things are valid because they’re helping it to externalise issue, and sometimes we can’t deal with it all by ourselves. And sometimes you need that little spirit guide or that somebody else that is going to go ‘You know what, it’s OK, let’s try this one’.

M: Yep. So essentially, what we’re saying is it’s about treating yourself like you treat your friends. You never say to your friends ‘you’re really not that intelligent are you Pete.’

P: [Laughter]

M: ‘How have you gotten through life so far?’

P: [Still Laughing]

M: So why do we think it’s okay to say it to ourselves? It really is crazy. If you were to write town and say aloud what we say to ourselves and say it to another person you never would absolutely would never say to someone’s face.

P: Sometimes it’s good to write those negative things down when you’re in that space because when you come back to it and go ‘Oh my god, did I really say that about myself, do I really hate myself that much.

M: Yep and I think that is the beauty of all this. Is that, you’re getting more of an understanding of yourself as a person and be kind, be kind to others, be kind to yourself. OK

We’re done for today. So thank you for joining us. If you want to hear more please remember to subscribe and like this podcast.

P: Until next time be kind to yourself. Bye

M: I think Ellen’s already got that one.

P: [Laugh] Oh, d’oh.

M: Yeah, you can’t take that. So… don’t be kind to yourself…?

P: [Laugh] No that doesn’t work…

[Laughter]

M: Bye

P: See ya

COVID-19 Check-in (E11)

30/03/2020 by Marie

Happiness for Cynics podcast – Episode 11

Welcome back to Season 2! What crazy times we’re living in! Pete and Marie have a COVID-19 check-in and a chat about their own happiness levels, share how they’re staying happy and what they’re seeing around them.

Things we Referenced in This Episode

Need a laugh? Watch the Poor Jennifer video (below).

Or call up a friend on Messenger and have a good laugh at each other as you try the filters!

Pete and Marie having a good ol’ chat on Facebook Messenger

For purpose and something meaningful to fill empty hours: take a look at the free online courses at Udemy and EdX.

To connect , make sure you do a COVID-19 check-in with your friends and family regularly via video (if you can). You can use Whatsapp or Facebook Messenger.

To stay fit and healthy, here’s a 20-minute beginners workout that killed me the other day. It’s not for beginners, I swear! But if you are after a true beginners work-out try this one.

Save a business: We also do a call out to Glebe Point Diner, in Sydney, who are doing take-away food at the moment. Support them if you can, their food is awesome and service is amazing!

Transcript

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

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

M: Yes, you can find us both at MarieSkelton.com. The site uses a lot of the same research we talk about here on the podcast. So if you want to follow up with anything was spoken about head on over there. So, on to today’s episode.

[Happy music]

M: So can we get the audio right this time?

P: We just did a whole take without any audio from Marie. [laughing]

M: Haha, these are the crazy Covid times we’re living in. So, this episode is a bit of a check in, it’s a Covid-19 sucks party. Yay!

P: Yay! Happy hands, jazz hands!

M: Which is how supposedly we’re all going to greet each other in the future. There will be no more touching.

P: Well, I love…. the musical theatre people have been doing this for decades. We’ve been greeting each other with jazz hands. We can’t kiss So we’ve got to do jazz hands.

M: I love it, I’m all down with jazz hands as the new way to great people moving forward. So Covid-19. So today we’re going to do things a little bit differently, something a little bit different and do a bit of a check in. And well, let’s just start with the check in the rest can be a secret.

P: Absolutely. How are you?

M: You beat me, you got in there. OK, well I’m doing really well. I’m into the end of week two of working from home. I’ve got a great employer who got us quick smart, all set up and locked and loaded to work from home. And my leaders have been checking in with us. We’ve had great communication from my employer.

Good reassurance that our jobs are safe for now. You know, as much as you can reassure anyone in these crazy times and I am a bit of an introvert, so I’m loving being at home, and I am going straight from working to… working on my podcast and then working on my blog, and I’m just like a pig in mud. Really. Yeah.

P: Happy space.

M: Yeah, and look for me, I know that many people are not happy. I’m definitely keeping an eye on my colleagues and family and friends.

P: I think that’s the thing is making sure that you do check in. I’ve actually gone back to thinking about social media, and it’s funny for me because I’m not working at the moment. I’m on the other side of the scale. I’m having to find things and find routines and all that sort of stuff. Part of that for me has been a bit of ah, maybe a bit of a dedication to going, right, let’s check in with people. Let’s reach out using social media and just go, Hey, you’re living on your own, You okay?

And I’ve been trying to do that with individuals each day and possibly people that I haven’t spoken into for a while. And I’m like, No, I’ve got to reach out and just check. I know a lot of people who are working from home, but they also live alone on. That’s a dangerous spot to be in at this point in time, when we are cut off from people we’re cut off from affection, we’re cut off from… even if we are introverts, being in a gym where you’re around people, being at the shops where you’re around people, going to the park where you’re around people, that isn’t happening.

So connectedness and social connectedness, as we’ve talked about in season one, is really important for our happiness. We are social creatures, and social beings, and we need that to be able to generate a lot of stuff that we need to be content and joyful and wellbeing

M: …and happy. Absolutely. And more than that, what keeps people happy is the deep relationships. And that’s why, as you said, it’s so important to pick up the phone, particularly if you’ve got video conferencing or a video chat functionality. WhatsApp have it now, Messenger has it, most phones you can call video to video.

P: We had a hilarious time yesterday. Peter finally figured out how to put the little effects on his face when he’s doing video chats! I think a conversation that could have taken two minutes went for 20!! Because who doesn’t need a laugh right now?

M: Absolutely, we do. We all need a little laughter, but we do need that… going back to that social connection… we do need that social connection and you need to maintain relationships, and it’s harder to do it over distance.

P: It’s different. It’s not necessarily harder.

M: We’ll agree to disagree on this one.

P: I think it’s a different interaction, but you can still maintain the connection in the relationship it’s just a different way of doing it.

M: Absolutely.

P: And we are lucky in this day and age that we do have videoconferencing because that visual reference is actually really important. You can’t tell context by someone’s delivery over text. Over the phone it’s still pretty good, but we’ve all been on that period where a text message in misinterpreted. It’s so easy to misinterpret just plain text. So videoconferencing, seeing someone space, and when you ask someone, how are you? And they’re like, “Oh, I’m fine.” It’s like damn it, I can’t actually tell that because I can’t say see you. So, we are fortunate in this stone age that we’ve got that facility because that was a really important part of maintaining those connections, and having that visual stimuli and being able to see someone and say yeah they’re fine, I saw them yesterday.

M: Absolutely, and you mentioned social media and I think the trick there is not to confuse being on social media with connecting with people. There’s a mindfulness to this, so using social media as a tool to connect with other people — for instance, the messenger functionality on Facebook – and using that to make a phone call with video is a very different thing from mindlessly scrolling for five hours on end because you’ve got nothing better to do. So, the mindless scrolling, the research is really clear on this, it is so bad for your mental health. And so I think the next thing that you need to be aware of apart from maintaining those social bonds, is what you do with your time.

P; This is where I’m struggling a little bit.

M: We’ve spoken about purpose before, and again, and I don’t know many of you may or may not have seen some of the videos on my site. And I talk about the change storm and how to deal with this constantly changing world that we live in. And there’s three things: one is that social connection, and the second is you’ve got to have purpose and meaning, and that just means something that you do that gives your day some structure and that you can enjoy the journey of doing it. You know? And setting goals.

P: yep, finding that routine. It’s waking up and going right, I’ve got to get a schedule in place, and I have no idea what I’m going to achieve that there’s going to be four things I’m going to write down. So, I’ve taken to writing things down on my pantry in chalk yeah, as they pop into my head as I’m having that morning cup of tea, it’s like, right, I’m going to do the crawl space today. I’m going to clean up the backyard. I’m going to write a blog. So, it’s having that little bit of routine that anchors us, and that gives us amazing clarity of mind, and it actually improves our mental health. There’s a lot of research out there that actually supports this. Look at me quoting research and getting scientific, you’ve changed me Marie.

M: I do want to caution, though that doing your to do list is going… is not going to help you in the long run. So as important as it is to catch up on all those chores that you’ve been wanting to do umm, and they are filling time in your day… You are on the squeakiest chair today.

P: It’s leather. It’s very pretty [laugh]

M: We’re just out of our element right now!

P: Yeah, everything is changing.

M: But some really good things, so firstly, set some goals and then work to achieve them, so anything you can do in a day is probably not going to give you the fulfilment that you need in the longer term and at the moment, the world.. we don’t know whether this is going to be a few weeks, just not very likely it looks like or a few months or a lot of months. So you mentioned Pete that you found in your crawl out cleaning activity you’re learning French, and I see here it’s actually a VHS video

P: Oh dear, I thought it was a CD. No it’s CD.

M: Of no, it’s just a VHS size.

P: I did. I don’t know where it has been for all these years, but there it is. And so there’s my next six weeks. Is getting my French up to speed?

M; Yeah, and that is a perfect goal to dive into, to have flow when you’re learning, and to feel accomplishment along the way. Then there’s some great resource is online for anyone, Udemy, or EdX, ed e-d-x. They’ve all got free online courses run by some of the top universities in the world, so you can study and a great one I’m going to go back to is University of Berkeley, sorry University of California, Berkeley. Their psychology department run a happiness course, and also, if you Google it, Yale’s most attended course is a course on happiness as well. I don’t know which platform that’s on, but you could probably Google that too. And take a course on happiness, for free.

P: This’s the time to be doing those sorts of things, and I like what you’re talking about there Marie in terms of the to do list, along with long term goals. So it’s okay, to go “well, I’m going to clean the backyard.” That’s a short-term goal, and that’s still good to occupy your time because you’re writing it down and it is an item that you can put in. But with those longer-term goals, it’s almost like you need to mix your day up a little bit with short stuff on. Then there’s got to be some long-term goals in there that are plugging away at something that is a bit more long-term that’s going to sustain you.

M; And let’s be honest. If you can’t get to painting the bathroom like your wife’s been nagging you to do for us 10 years now, you never will. She’s gonna have to give up on

P; Let it go [singing frozen]

M: Weeding the garden. Whatever your thing is that you know you should do, but you just never get around to it. If you’re not going to do it during Covid-19 it is never happening. And you should look at how to outsource that.

P: Know when you are beaten.

M: There are many people who will do that stuff for you. [laughing] Yeah, I think, I think it’s a really good call out, having purpose and also having those deep social bonds. And the third thing that — if you can’t tell, I’m writing a book and researching this right now — but the third thing is self care. And one of the things that a lot of people who are working from home have been doing is realising that they can spend from morning to night sitting at their computer. Yep, they’re not getting up for lunch a lot of the time, or they get their lunch and come straight back to their desks and they’re spending huge amounts… like 10 hours at a time sitting at their computer.

And we need to be just a bit more mindful about looking after ourselves right now. Look, emotionally. It is top of mind, but physically, are you getting enough sleep? Are you doing a bit of exercise? There’s some great YouTube videos that you can put on your TV, You can do your yoga downward dog stuff like Pete does, whatever. Or a full cardio workout and a lot of the gyms are streaming.

P: So many of the personal trainers and gyms are streaming their content and it’s valuable information. I got to Wednesday this week after spending pretty much this week in isolation. I’ve been going into work occasionally for necessary purposes, but really I’m in kind of isolation mode and realise that it was so easy to not do my normal exercise. To not go and play some volleyball, which I adore. To not be swinging off the rings or the chin up bar because I couldn’t get into my training studio. However, on Wednesday I made the conscious choice and said, No, I’m going to do it, and I found myself procrastinating. I could just clean that knob on that door one more time with the Diggers vanilla methylated spirits. Or maybe I should just cook… and I was like, “no, go on, get changed.”

M: Diggers, what?

P: It’s really pretty. It’s really nice and smelling.

M: Whatevs [laughs]

P: So I went an got changed on. That was, that was the lever. I had to get out of my casual clothes and into my work out gear. That change made me go down and do my little routine that I’m normally used to doing for my warm up downstairs on my little rug. Great, awesome did it. And I bought a pair of gymnastic rings about six months ago with the full intention of setting them up somewhere. That’s where they were. And it was that right? I got them out of the packet.

M: See!? One of those things that you probably would have never done if it hadn’t been for Covid-19.

P: Possibly it was the lever, though. It actually because I committed to doing something and even though I didn’t have any hand weights or kettlebells, I found two LPG gas bottles on it worked a treat.

M: See, I am, as I said at the end of week two, and every morning I get up, I put my gym gear on. Then I sit at my computer for 14 hours. [laughter] Until today I finally went and put that YouTube video on it, and I found this great video. It was number one on YouTube, 20 minute work out. I thought I’d just do 20 minutes now and then I might do it again at lunchtime because really, it is so, so unhealthy to spend that much time sitting, and I’m so aware of it. And today I did do quite a few more meetings standing up and standing up and stretching. So I turned the video off and had a bit of a cheeky move on the spot and get everything moving again.

And I really need to be a lot better at doing that. Anyway, I turned on this 20 minutes YouTube video this morning and made it to 10 minutes, and I was like Jesus Christ! This is not for beginners! [laughter] It’s crazy, two weeks and I just lost all my fitness.

P: Well, it’s not hard to do and this is the thing we have to move. We are meant to move and people who are spending 10 and 14 hours of your computer, you’re not helping yourselves. We need to move, you know, because your productivity goes through the floor. If we’re not taking breaks for lunch, if we’re not having that 11 o’clock morning coffee where you walk away from the computer and you sit down in the backyard and look at the birds and look at the clouds and all that sort of stuff, it stops your brain from going into a wire tracking it gives you fresh stimulus. It accesses different parts of your brain. Which means the brain is more turned on, it’s more receptive to other stuff. You’re walking away from an issue, you’re coming back and looking at it with fresh eyes. New thoughts are going to pop up because your brain waves are firing in different lobes of your brain. Exercise and movement is another part of that. Making sure that you keep the neuro plasticity by using your physical self.

M: [whispers “I think Pete’s on a bit of a rant”] Keep going hun.

P: [Laughs] I’ve been doing this for years!

[laughter]

P: Should I stop now?

M; Mmmm, maybe. Pete says do exercise everyone.

P: Move people. People get up and move even if it is being like Chinese Revolutionary Army and standing up on doing star jumps and being silly and swinging your arms in the air, just do it makes a world of difference.

M; Oh, we should all have a dance party.

P: Hey I’m all for the dance parties. Yep.

M: So I did read that in the UK there was some DJs that we’re doing some dance parties from their lounge rooms, and everyone was going to dial in. Love it. So, we’ve only got a few minutes left. What are your thoughts for how this might change humanity? I think this is such a defining time in our generation, and it’s the implications just like World War One, World War two. And I’m not saying that war is on the same level as a pandemic. But…

P: it’s a serious of change, though. That’s the thing that changes the way the view things because you have a relative experience speaking with my mom today. My mom’s a war baby and good old mom. She’s like, You know, it’s just like the end of the Second World War and I’m like, Well, yeah, but remember Mum we haven’t had that experience. And she was like, you kids have had it too good and was like, “no, we’ve just had it. And we’ve gotten used to this comfort level of of having access. Now we have a relative point of reference, and I think that will be the thing that changes a lot of people. People are going to realise what’s important. I think your priority will change

M: we might be grateful!

P: There’s a lot of positive change that could come from this.

M: I am such a firm believer…. Look, I’ve always said I’m a cynic, but I’m also very positive, if you can’t tell. So you know, I like to have a joke, and it’s probably my sense of humour that I like to throw a bit of shade at people. But I think this is going to help us to refocus on what’s important in life.

P: Definitely.

M: And I think that we were getting to such a point where we were letting the stressed of life run our lives, we were being reactive and responsive.

P: Yes I agree with you.

M: with work pressures, family pressures, keeping up with the Joneses, keeping up with the latest technolog, FOMO, , et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And now I had a great conversation with a colleague today who was saying, You know, I went to this, um, baking with my kids and then we went and did some gardening, and it was such good bonding time. And normally she was saying she would have spent all that time running around and taking them swimming and getting to and from work and all the rest of it. And I think it’s coming back to basics, and it’s all the stuff that we’ve been talking about Pete! It’s calling your mom. It is finding something that you can take pleasure in and that you contribute to…

P: it’s mindfulness

M: It’s self care. Mindfulness, kindness to others looking after your body physically, so drinking water, getting sleep, doing exercise, eating right. Like all of those wonderful things that we’ve been talking about. We’re finally returning to that. So if you take Covid out, we’re all going to be super happy. And there’ll be no need for a podcast.

[laughter]

P: A little reminder, maybe, a little reminder to look at the things. You missed one thing in there was which for me is really important from this result is a sense of community. And that we are realising that the community in which we live is actually important to us.

M: I said social.

P: You did. I want to throw community out there because it’s a little bit more specific in terms of the people you have around you. When you have that happiness point, you need to reach out. And who’s that community? So it might not be the community you’re living, it might not be your neighbours, but it’s the person who lives down there down the hill and up the other stairs…

M: Oh that’s me!

P: That’s you [laughter].

M; I live down the hill and up the stairs. [laughter].

P: That’s the person that you reach out to you when you’re going. Oh, I feel like a coffee with someone.

M: I’ll make a coffee in my kitchen. You make a coffee in yours, and we’ll put funny face filters on ourselves.

P: Haha, yeah, so that sense of community, I think, is what one thing, is the one thing that will come out of this for a lot of people, and holding that community close, which is really important and vital. And as we know from the research, it helps with happiness.

M; Oh, absolutely. I’ve decided to make it my mission. If anyone’s in Glebe in Sydney, there’s a great restaurant called Glebe Point Diner, and I’ve made it my mission to make sure that they don’t go out of business during these tough times. So they’re doing take away now. call them up.

P: I think everyone’s get their favourite coffee shop for their favourite restaurant. Support them, they need it. A lot of people need that support, and it’s really important, even if you’re not going in. And I went past my coffee boys the other day. I didn’t need a coffee. I was already dialled up from my own coffee at home, but I spent five minutes talking to them, they’re my community, and they’ve been my community for 12 years.

M; Yeah. So I’m going to look after the other thing. I just wrote a post on this this week. There are a lot of animals being returned to shelters right now. So if you’re in a position to foster, you don’t even have to adopt. But if you happen to fall in love and keep him forever, then you know, every pet deserves a forever home…

P: even if, even if your husband makes you promise that you’re never going to pick up another stray cat?

[laughter]

M: It was in my vows, part of my vows to my husband, and I don’t think he would have taken me otherwise. No more strays. But if you can help out, the benefits as far as higher oxytocin levels, just benefits are through the roof. Also, having dogs is good for excise because you walk them.

P: Absolutely

M: So from a mental health point of view, cats and dogs are all fabulous and then exercise. So if you’re struggling with those things right now, particularly if you do live alone

P: Foster a pet for six weeks!

M: Consider helping out. A lot of people are in financial stress, and you know. Unfortunately, that means they’ve got to ask for help from a shelter because those pets right now have nowhere to go. All right. Well, that was a really depressing way to finish. Do you have a joke? Something we can laugh at?

P: I’m terrible with jokes. I can’t do jokes, I come up with bad ones and dad ones. I’m horrible. I say go Disney, get some Disney. Do something childlike, go and dance around. I think we were talking before about the YouTube video featuring Jennifer.

M: Yes! Jennifer, go watch the Jennifer video. I’m sorry, Jennifer. I’m sure you’re lovely.

P: I think Jennifer’s gonna benefit from this.

M: For those of you who would like to know, there are a good 8 to 10 people on a video conference call and someone’s talking. And Jennifer is one of the participants, and she stands up and obviously thinks her video isn’t on and takes a laptop into the bathroom with her and pulls her pants down. You can’t see anything for you pervs out there, pulls her pants down and everyone you see their eyes they’re just in shock

P: [laughter] No one would say anything.

M: And the person who’s talking stops talking, and it’s at that point that Jennifer looks over and realises she’s on video.

P: Hey, I’m all for nudity. I think what’s wrong with a little bit of ass every now and then?

[silence]

P: It’s how I say hello to people. You’re in my inner circle if I strip off in front of you.

M: It’s true.

P: Marie know it. Most of my volleyball team a knows it as well.

M: It’s a bit of a problem.

P: Really?

M: No, I’m ok with it though.

P: On that happy note….

M: Yes, we will let you go. Stay safe, everyone, and we will see you next week.

P: Stay happy folks.

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

15/03/2020 by Marie

Happiness for Cynics podcast

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

Transcription

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

[intro music]

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

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

DB: Absolutely.

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

DB: Right, thanks.

[Laughter]

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

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

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

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

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

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

DB: Absolutely.

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

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

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

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

[Laughter]

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

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

M: That’s huge.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

M: Yep

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

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

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

M: mm hhmm.

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

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

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

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

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

M: Yep

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

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

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

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

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

Marie: Okay, thank you for your time.

DB: Awesome. Thank you.

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

[Happy exit music]

Meet besties Marie and Pete

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

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

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

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

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

Being Alone Can Make you Happier (E7)

15/03/2020 by Marie

Happiness for Cynics podcast – episode 7

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

Transcription

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

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

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

[Happy music]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

P: So, I did get that wrong.

M: Ssshh, don’t tell anyone.

[Laughter]

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

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

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

P: OK

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

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

[Laughter]

M: That was a culture clash.

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

M: Yep

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

M: Name them?

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

M: I’m calling you out

[Laughter]

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

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

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

P: Yes, definitely.

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

[Laughter]

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

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

M: Yeah, so when I first got married.

P: OOOHHH

M: [Laugh] We’re sharing.

P: [Raucous Laughter]

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

P: Aawww, how sweet.

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

[Laughter]

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

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

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

P: and that’s a very individual thing.

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

P: Yeah

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Laughter]

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

[Laughter]

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

P: [Laugh] I have it with Disney.

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

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

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

P: Oh Yeah [Laugh]

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

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

P: [Laugh] Back to the science Marie.

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

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

P: Win for the Artists!

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

P: That’s not balance.

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

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

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

So it’s, again that old chestnut balance.

[Laughter]

P: The Yin and the Yang.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

P: And remember you called Abby…

M: until next time.

P & M: Bye

Meet besties Marie and Pete

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

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

What is Flow and How to Find it (E5)

15/03/2020 by Marie

Happiness for Cynics podcast – episode 5

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

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

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

Transcription

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

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

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

[Happy music]

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

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

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

P: Oh well done Muz

[Laughter]

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

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

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

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

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

It’s all about the task at hand.

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

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

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

P: I particularly like that last one

M: [Laugh]

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

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

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

[Laughter]

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

P: Yes

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

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

[Laughter]

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

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

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

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

P: – in a corporate environment

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

[Laughter]

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

It is: Stop the distractions. Right?

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

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

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

P: Oh yeah.

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

[Laughter]

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

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

[Laughter]

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

[Laughter]

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

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

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

M: [Laugh]

P: So why flow? Why have flow?

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

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

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

[Laughter]

M: I got nothing.

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

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

P: Interesting.

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

[Laughter]

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

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

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

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

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

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

P: [Laugh] Yep

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

P: [Laugh]

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

P: [Laugh]

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

P: You have to be invested –

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

P: Exactly. Yeah definitely.

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

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

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

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

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

P: Nice, we’d love to hear from you.

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

P: See you next week, bye.

Meet besties Marie and Pete

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

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

Bringing Awe and Inspiration into Your Life (E4)

15/03/2020 by Marie

Happiness for Cynics podcast – episode 4

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

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

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

Transcription

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

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

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

[Happy intro music]

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

P: Absolutely, let’s go for it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

M: Seize the day, right.

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

[Laughter]

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

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

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

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

P: Yes

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

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

M: And no air con

P: [laugh] Oh my god, yes!

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

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

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

P: Yes

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

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

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

P: True

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

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

M: – Enjoy it.

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

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

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

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

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

M: Of course you were.

P: [Laugh]

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

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

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

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

[Laughter]

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

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

P: Yeah, so there’s a perspective.

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

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

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

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

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

P: Definitely.

M: So experiencing awe makes you more generous.

P: Yeah, I like that.

M: According to research.

P: So Marie, what brings you awe?

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

[Laughter]

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

P: yet definitely.

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

P: – [Laugh] Reality TV shows!

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

P: Yeah it’s the Susan Boyle moments –

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

[Laughter]

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

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

P: [Laugh]

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

P: [Sharp intake of breath] [Laugh]

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

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

[Laughter]

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

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

[Laughter]

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

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

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

M: [Laugh]

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

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

P: Yeah

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

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

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

P: [Laughter]

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

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

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

P: Very lovely piece.

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

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

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

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

M: Absolutely.

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

M: Yep

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

M: Thanks.

Meet besties Marie and Pete

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

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

The Importance of Gratitude (E3)

15/03/2020 by Marie

Happiness for Cynics podcast – season 1, episode 3

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

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

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

Transcription

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

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

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

[Happy intro music]

M: So, Peter, why gratitude?

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

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

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

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

P: I apologise to our Victoria listeners.

M: I don’t [Laugh]

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

M: You chose Sydney, just saying.

[Laughter]

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

P: What is gratitude?

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

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

[Laughter]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

P: Yes, definitely.

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

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

M: Yeah, I’ll give it to you.

[Laughter]

I’m just not allowed to say begets apparently.

[Laughter]

M: It’s pompous

P: It’s Stephen Fry!

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Laughter]

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

Matthew McConaughey’s address to graduating students at Houston University

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Laughter]

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

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

M: [Laughter]

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

M: Yeah, I lived in D. C.

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

M: It’s the cold! Everything’s cold!

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

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

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

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

P: Yeah, completely.

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

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

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

You know those people who press the buttons?

[Laughter]

M: We can see you!

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

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

P: Definitely.

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

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

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

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

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

P: identifying it.

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

P: come back

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

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

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

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

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

P: Awe, so quick.

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

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

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

Meet besties Marie and Pete

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

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

Happiness at Work (E2)

15/03/2020 by Marie

Happiness for Cynics podcast – season 1, episode 1

We spend an estimated 90,000 hours at work over our lifetime, so it’s important that we’re happy at least some of that time, right? Here’s the latest research on how to bring happiness to your workplace.

Subscribe so you don’t miss out! We’re working on new episodes as we speak. Don’t miss out!

Transcription

Okay, Welcome back. You’re here with Marie, and Peter and this is Happiness for Cynics.

P: I’m the happiness, she’s the cynic.

M: [Laugh] Today, we’re going to talk about happiness in the workplace. Unfortunately, most people have to go to work.

P: [Laugh] Some of us choose to go to work because we’re happy.

M: [Laugh] A lot of us go to work because we choose not to live on the streets.

P: Aahh fundamental choices, we’ll talk about that in another episode won’t we.

[Laughter]

M: And I am I think that there’s a lot of discourse right now about choosing something that you’re passionate about and something that makes you happy.

P: Well, we do spend what, 30% of our time working or something like that.

It’s interesting because I made those choices many years ago not to follow the money path, to follow passion and it’s funny these conversation keep coming up and I’m “Hey, I’m already there, I’ve done it! Yay for me!

M: It’s funny you should say that because as much as I love you, I have to say, I feel like it’s an elite privilege to be able to make those choices.

P: I’d agree with you on that. Yes.

M: Not, not trying to judge you or anything but I think that a lot of people especially living in a large city like we are in Sydney. You don’t really have many choices, if you’ve got two kids and a husband or a wife or a partner, you have to make some career choices that may not be solely driven by your personal happiness.

P: Yes, completely agree. The ability to be able to choose passion over career or over a more logical choice is determined by your situation and your circumstances eg. Children, mortgage all that sort of stuff. You can choose to deny some of those but some of those you can’t and that will inform what you choose to do with your occupation. I agree with you on that one. Hey, we agree on something, how nice.

M: [Laugh] It won’t last.

P: [Laugh]

M: There’s been a lot of discussion in the media about millennials and the shift in millennials’ expectations for the work place and the fact that traditional corporates have been struggling to hire millennials because they’re not offering purpose and passion – or they traditionally haven’t – and they’re having to now look at what they offer to that generation if they want to hire them. Things like flexible work, purpose, meaning and in fact, there’s a great article that we just read called ‘It’s Time to Take Culture Seriously’ that we found on ChiefExecutive.net and in that article.. look I’ll quote something to you Pete, if you’ll bear with me. I’m really keen to discuss this idea of meaning and purpose, and whether it really is an organisation’s or company’s job to help employees discover their meaning and purpose and then provide that to them, or whether their job is simply to pay wages for work done.

P: Yeah

M: I’ll read this quote.

‘It’s time that we stopped thinking that culture happens to us and instead take responsibility for designing inclusive environments, collaborative ways of working and humane incentive systems that bring out the best in ourselves and in others. It certainly helps when a culture is modelled at the top, like the change that Mandela is sparking at Microsoft. But we’re all capable of making more positive choices that create meaning and shared purpose regardless of our official role or title.’

Now I find this fascinating, so meaning and purpose and the reason why I want to talk about that right now is that they’re so critical to happiness.

P: Definitely, I definitely agree.

M: If you’re lost and you’ve got no meaning, no purpose, it’s very hard to be happy. And so given that we spend so many hours a week out work, Do you think it’s the organisation or boss’s job to make someone’s role meaningful? What do you think? You’re a small business owner Pete?

P: I am and I have battled with that concept actually. I remember in my own career, in a former career, I remember one of my bosses turned to me, saying, “it is not my job to make you feel good my job is to create art.” So you would walk into the rehearsal room and you knew that it wasn’t that person’s job to make everybody feel good about themselves and have a nice time. They were like no, we have a job, we have to do this and we have to get this product made and we’re going to do that and it’s tough.

I don’t think that we can be mushy mushy and have all these fuzzy feelings in terms of CEO or leaders of business or business owners having to take responsibility for other people’s happiness. However, I think it is an interesting conversation that is coming around now that we are identifying that the workplace has a role in that and that if you read the people who have gone through the self help world and have come out the other side. The book that comes to mind is ‘The ‘Monk who sold his Ferrari’ by Robin Sharma. It’s a book about a guy who was a hot shot corporate lawyer then sold it all and moved to the Nepal and came back to his workplace and shocked everybody with his transformation. Our employees and our employment has the capacity to give our lives meaning, and I think there is a role that senior people can have in identifying that, but in that quote that you read there was a personal responsibility for everybody to ensure that they have meaning in their lives. So you can’t just give that over to somebody else there’s a bit of personal responsibility as well.

M: So I think it’s a bit easier in jobs where you’re using your brain and there’s flexibility for creativity. Where I think that this new idea falls over is in areas like the service industry or more blue collar work, to be honest. So if your job is to turn a widget 100 times every hour, how is the owner of that factory meant to give you more satisfaction, turning that widget 100 times per hour? How can they?

P: I think that comes down to the value of your worker and making your worker feel that they are part of a bigger cog or a bigger system that if that widget doesn’t turn then that’s not going to allow other people to achieve the high-end of the product if you like. So if you look at it from a watch maker’s perspective, if they ignore one cog, the whole system doesn’t work the watch doesn’t function and therefore, you can’t call yourself a watchmaker or repairer because you’re not doing the job. If the person in the chain is not aware that they are contributing to the bigger product, then that’s a failing of the person who’s in charge. You’ve got to empower the smallest of people to feel they’re making a difference. Take a janitor in high school if he doesn’t clean the rooms, then it is not a clean school. And that has huge implications on the students, the people who are using the product and the teachers who are coming in and expecting the science room to be clean on its not but that does that janitor have a clear line of sight to the affect that their work has. And maybe that’s where people who are in charge, CEOs and business people have more of a role to make people more informed of the value of what they actually do within a structure.

M: I think that’s a really good segue into a lot of talk right now about purpose of an organisation. Everyone always talks about the importance to motivate your employees of having a strong vision, it’s leadership 101. We’ve all known that for ages, but in today’s day and age, where technology and social media makes even the smallest mistake viral within 24 hours, the smallest leadership mistake can bring that down, and Uber is a great example that.

P: Absolutely, and we can look at some of our insurance corporations in the most recent rounds of the royal commission and see examples of that as well.

M: Yeah absolutely. So if an organisation in a capitalist society is there to make money and this is the cynic in me again, right. Like an organisation with shareholders, its primary purpose is to make money for its shareholders. You can also talk about the importance of your customers, which a lot of companies do, and one would argue that they’re intrinsically linked. You could also, then, if you’re really on top of it, talked about how valuable your employees are. And again, one would argue they’re all intrinsically linked. But when push comes to shove the purpose of a public company — we’re in Australia, so we would call them public — so shareholder owned company is to make money. So, how is it that an employee who turns 100 cog – even if it is for a watch maker and they understand that their watches help people tell time – Get it? How are they meant to feel that sense of purpose or meaning or pride, more than anything, I think if really all an organisation is there to do is to make money. And are we seeing a shift of bottom up ground swell that our employees and our customers are expecting more from corporations with all the corporate social responsibility? It was a fad 10, 15 years ago, 20 years ago, and now it’s becoming far more intrinsic to the way people operate.

P: I think you hit the nail on the head there in terms of the social aspects of corporate business and corporate identity because people are mindful investors now. So you have more people interested in supporting businesses that have a social network that have a social fabric or a social identity. Mining is huge, a lot of people don’t like mining, it’s dirty, it’s polluting and all that sort of stuff. But Australia makes its back off it, so we can’t just negate that huge influx into our economy. So mining companies are doing things like supporting local communities and doing indigenous development programmes to try and up their social value if you like. And I think that this is a change in what we’re seeing in terms of corporatisation, maybe you’ve had more to say on this but definitely since the industrial era, it’s no longer enough to just make more money and we’re seeing that in Geopolitics as well where the culture of wellbeing is informing our policy. Look at the recent release of New Zealand’s wellbeing budget that’s just been rolled out.

M: I just have to say, Jacinda Ardern [NZ’s Prime Minister] is just killing it, love it.

P: She is but what she’s doing differently with this is that this is a concept has been around since the 2000’s with lots of countries like Sweden, Wales, Ireland, even the UK and Australia have had these phrases in the treasury policies, and things have been out there. But what Jacinda is doing really well is that they’re taking it further, and now they’re putting in actual critical measurement stakes off the five areas they want to improve and they’re giving it value and giving it goals. So this is a reflection of maybe what’s going on in corporate culture as well is that no longer is it enough to just make more cash.

M: For those of you listeners who haven’t been following what little New Zealand has been doing over here in the pacific. Recently New Zealand announced a new set of goals for government essentially, and rather than just focusing on GDP, they’re focusing on wellbeing measures. So it’s not enough for the country to get richer and the people get poorer. And it’s not enough for the country to get richer if the people don’t have access to education and health care. So it’s really interesting to look at that. And if you want to read more on that, there’s a whole lot online around the sustainable development goals. And they’ve definitely aligned up to some great..

[pause]

P: I’m just looking at the reference actually

[Laughter]

M: Pete’s typing it you can hear him..

P: I was told I wasn’t allowed to type.

[more laughter]

M: There’s no getting away with typing with two microphones in a podcast.

P: There’s a great article on TheConversation.com that talks about New Zealand’s wellbeing budget deliveries. If you just put that into the search engine there they will come up with a whole heap of references to that website which is really pro-actively promoting the new Ardern agenda.

M: Yeah, definitely worth looking at. So back to happiness in the workplace, though. So what are the takeaways here. Is it an organization’s job to make sure it’s employees are happy?

P: It’s in its best interest, surely. A happy worker is a good worker. I’m going to come out with a personal story I have here where I was working in a hospitality job in Adelaide. We were having a little bit of fun on a Sunday was a big Sunday. We were getting slammed and it was hot. Everyone was wanting all this stuff and I decided I was in a silly mood and started taunting this waiter from across the cake counter. Doing little Peter Rabbit noises across the cakes. And she began to lose her flow for delivery to the table, to the point where she actually had to come behind the counter to give me a little slap and then we fell on the floor laughing. We were working for four hours really hard’. The business owner’s father walked around the countertop. Saw us both on the floor behind the cake counter, laughing, and simply looked at us and went, ‘well a happy worker is a good worker’. And I think that that’s a real little gem there is that happy workers will work hard for their employers if they can see the direct influence that they’re having. If your employer comes to you and says, Marie great job on this aspect of that presentation, it really helped give the company a certain leg up or got us forward in this, in this aspect of our business, that’s going to give you a little bit of feeling of well being and self esteem and self esteem is a huge bonus in terms of prerequisites for happiness. It’s going to make you feel good the next time that a difficult product or a difficult question crosses your desk. You’re going to do a better job again. That direct feedback is really important. And in that way, looking after your workers in that way is vital for a functioning company.

M: Yeah, Look, I definitely do agree, but the cynic in me just wants to reiterate that it’s not about having values plastered on a poster that you trot out any time you are interviewing someone.

P: Which comes down to a great quote in the article that we mentioned.

‘Clear communication is critical, but words are empty without follow through.’

P: You need to action things up. You can’t just be seen to be supporting wellbeing and supporting your work.

M: All right, well, we are out of time.

P: That was awfully quick [Laugh]

So we might circle back on some of the other developments in happiness at work. I know that the greater Good Science Centre, over at California, Berkeley. They do some great work and have even got an ed-X course titled ‘Happiness at Work’, which is a good free primer to all of the research out there. And there is a lot of research out there on the importance of happiness at work and also how to help your organisation or your business to have happy employees. There is also a lot of science behind this and the importance and benefits down to ROI [return on investment] and bottom line dollars for having happy employees.

P: So is a very big field. But all for another time.

M: Well, thank you, Peter.

P: My pleasure

M: I never call you Peter… and Thank you listeners, we will see you next time.

Meet besties Marie and Pete

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

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

What is Happiness? (E1)

15/03/2020 by Marie

Happiness for Cynics podcast – season 1, episode 1

In our first episode, meet Marie and Pete and learn a little about what we mean by happiness and its history. Learn about why you too should be asking the question: what is happiness?

Subscribe so you don’t miss out! We’re working on new episodes as we speak! Don’t miss out!

Transcript

[Intro]

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

P: Hi there. I’m Peter Furness. I’m a remedial massage therapist, dance and movement practitioner, yoga loving global adventurer. Each week we will bring to you the latest news and research in the world of positive psychology, otherwise known as happiness.

M: You can find our podcast at HappinessForCynics.com or visit MarieSkelton.com for articles and resource on change and resiliency as well as happiness and finding balance in today’s busy world. The site talks about a lot of the same research we talked about here on the podcast and has some really practical tips for bringing joy and happiness into your life.

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

[happy intro music]

P: Ah the happy music. Don’t you love it?

M: That’s going to be so annoying after the hundredth time.

P: Every time I hear it, I bop my head.

M: Well it does make me smile, that’s why we picked it.

P: Exactly. Okay, Welcome to Episode one. Today we’re talking generally about happiness.

M: I guess we should. That’s why we’re here, right?

P: But before we do that, why are we here and who are we? Marie?

M: I’m a cynic. It’s true. I’m naturally curious and generally positive. But I’m definitely a realist, and I have no time for fluff. It’s why I’ve spent my entire life quietly, scoffing at the headlines like ‘Five Ways to be your Best self’ or ‘why mindfulness is so important at work.’ But then, a couple of years ago, something happened that since made me question everything I thought I knew about living life. I had a motorbike accident a couple of years ago, and I nearly lost my life and my leg. And I’ve spent years recovering both physically and mentally, but something strange has happened along the way. I started reading those articles with the bubbling brooks and the five stones stacked on top of each other. And to be fair, I still haven’t really gotten on board with the whole Yogi movement. But the weird thing is that now I won’t automatically rule it out.

P: We’re getting to you see, It’s a Revolution!

M: It’s a cult

P: I, however, come from a much more creative background, dredged up in theatres and stages, school drama rooms and music halls. I even have a degree in dance performance, much to my mother’s despair. I’ve never worn a suit to work, so my background is perhaps a little more, shall we say, alternative?

M: Yes we shall.

P: My friends often referred to me as the universal, angel loving believer in the karmic gods. They would joke that Pete would always throw it up to the sky and let the angels guide me. Now, I’m sure that somewhere along the path of being a creative, dramatic thespionic devotee and performance artist, I also managed to pick up a belief that the world will throw what is right at you in the right moment. I’m probably more of an ethereal than a realist, in contrast to Marie, but believing in the ebbs and flows of energetic poles and some well reasoned, fatalistic surrender. But I’ll admit that over the years, a little bit of the dark side of logic has permeated my unicorn laden realm.

M: uh huh, each to their own.

P: [Laughter]

M: now, because I’m a cynic and still coming to terms with admitting I buy into all this New Age stuff, I also started studying it because that’s what cynics do. You know, to make sure it’s actually legit.

P: You need the statistics and the research. You don’t just go believing.

M: Yeah. No. I’m really not throwing anything up to angels. So the weird thing is, I never knew this was out there. Even though the field of positive psychology is still relatively young, there is a huge body of research out there! Absolutely massive. Which brings me to why we’re here. This stuff is real and cynics all over the world are missing out.

P: Too, right. Okay, So we’re here to talk about happiness, and when we talk about happiness, there are so many permeations of that word. We are here to talk about how to approach happiness and our own approach to what makes us happy.

M: I think what Pete’s trying to say is…

P: shut down!

M: We’ll present the research and case studies…

P: because it’s all about the research

M: Well, yes, with a heavy dose of cynicism from me and maybe even we’ll try some of these ideas out. If you want to follow along at home, I promise I won’t tell anyone, so you don’t feel silly.

P: And those people who are more like me, we’ll just go along because it’s fun.

M: So let me just start by saying I’m not buying it.

P: Oh Muz.. [Marie’s annoying nickname that stuck sometime around 1998]

M: I admit I’m more than a little bit sceptical, but I’m also curious. And surely the huge amount of real research out there can’t be wrong.

P: I’m a buyer Muz. I’m the one waiting for the doors to open at five AM on those Boxing day sales. I’m primed, shoulder pads ready to go, plucking my way through the bargain basement offerings of the happiness stock pile. I don’t know why, but one day I just decided to buy into happiness.

M: I think that’s why this will work. You’ve got the cynic and the buyer. So, we should probably start with a bit of history about happiness. From my side it’s going to be short history, you see, even though philosophers have been writing about happiness and meaning for centuries, psychologists have traditionally been more focused on the negative aspects of mental health. So it’s only been in the last couple of decades that researchers have put any time into studying what happy people are doing, rather than why people are sad.

P: Yeah, Eastern and Western philosophers have all debated and tort apart the search for happiness and what that indeed means to us, as in mankind, us. The concept of happiness being a thing to strive for is a relatively Western ideal.

M: So happiness is not momentary emotions like fun enthusiasm or pride. It’s not about being always cheery or without stress, anger, grief or sadness also not about having a continuous stream of positive emotional experience.

P: Unendingly happy people are so boring.

M: [Laughter]

M: It’s also really hard to attain, right? And in fact, as long as it doesn’t last too long, being sad or angry can be a positive thing and give your life more meaning and happiness afterwards.

P: Completely. Happiness is not about pleasure and hedonism. Unfortunately. Sadly, it’s not achieved by gratifying all of your desires or by having decadent, luxurious experiences. Happiness isn’t a tireless climb towards achievement or status, and it isn’t the result of getting everything perfect all the time.

M: Okay, so we know what happiness isn’t. But what is happiness? I think my favourite definition comes from the pioneer of scientific research on human happiness Sonja Lyubomirsky. She’s a professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside, and she defines happiness as “the experience of joy, contentment or positive wellbeing, combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful and worthwhile.”

P: It’s interesting because the origins of the word for happiness actually relate to the meaning of luck for cultures that had to endure plague, invading armies, famine or the wrath of others. Happiness was luck. Pure luck. There’s a great quote by English Buddhist monk Gelong Thubten that says, ‘the mind that seeks happiness is telling itself that it is unhappy.’ He would argue that happiness, fundamentally, is an emotional response to an outcome. It’s result reliant.

Academics, self-help Gurus, Monks all seem to agree that joy and well being are vital elements of happiness. The message is often that joy is the thing that we should seek, for out of joy comes happiness. If you can find joy in the doing, then you will achieve happiness. Wellbeing is a similar prerequisite for happiness, as when we are well and healthy, we are more disposed to enjoying free time with fulfilling actions that ultimately bring about contentment and meaning. So, short, what all the ancient wisdom warns us against is simply striving for happiness. It is an empirical irony in this way, unlike other goals, it cannot necessarily be attained simply by striving for it. It shouldn’t be the goal. It’s the added bonus. It’s like at the end of an Oprah Winfrey show “you get a car, you get a car!”

M: [Laughter] OK, free cars aside why bother with this hippy New Age happiness stuff? A lot of older generations were quite happy to suck it up in boring, unfulfilling jobs and mediocre lives without complaining the whole time. This all seems a bit indulgent don’t you think.

P: Not at all, Marie. Because Unhappy people die!!!

M; Okay, that’s true. Studies find that when you’re less happy, you’re more vulnerable to illness. You’re more vulnerable to different kinds of disease. You also take longer to recover from illness, and you actually have a compromised life expectancy. Researchers Dacher Keltner and Emiliana Simon-Thomas, who teach course called the Science of Happiness so that people who are happy in life have an easy time feeling good and recovering from adversity. They have close, supportive social connections, and they believe their presence in the world matters.

P: Absolutely, there’s a huge body of research out there that shows that happier people live longer, healthier lives. There’s a wonderful research project in Harvard University in Boston that was started in 1938. It followed 724 young men from diverse backgrounds. Their findings are so conclusive that happiness has a direct relation to your life expectancy and your quality of life, especially in your later years.

M: So what you’re saying is this is the part where we all go wake up at five AM do yoga, drink green tea and are sickeningly happy, right?

P: [Laugh] Well we know not all of us aren’t morning exercise people. But it is about buying in Marie. When you go to a Tony Robbins presentation over two days over the weekend, you walk in on that first morning and you’re in an auditorium filled with thousands of people and you don’t see Tony first. Out comes the fluffer the dude who primes everybody before hand, he fluffs the crowd gets people out of their chairs. He gets them active he gets them physical. It’s like, How do we get you to the level that we need you so that when the dude walks out, you’re ready to receive his words and there are a lot of people who go to these presentations and they spend a heap of money and they’re standing there go[ing] “why am I jumping around like a Baptist preacher? Why am I doing this?” and the dude on stage is so encouraging. You’ve got to believe in this. You’ve got to buy in. If you don’t, you’re not going to get the benefit of the presentation.

So you do the first day and you come out going “Wow, that was amazing. That was really cool.” You come in the second day and you do the same thing, the fluffer comes out and he’s ready to get your pumped. But this time you’re ready for it. And you understand. I have to buy into this. I have to be a part of this process and jump around and clap my hands. Because I know that if I do that, I’m going to be ready and receptive to what magic is about to come at me from the stage.

M: Okay? So even though my entire body is fighting against jumping around in order to be receptive to your message, I’m here. We’re here. I’m in, and I’m really excited to see where this will take me, despite my cynicism. So I think it’s really interesting that a lot of people live their lives, live successful lives, but they’re not necessarily satisfied. And that’s really what I want this podcast to be about. How to be satisfied? And for me that means how can you be happy? So I’ve always looked at you, Pete, and seen a very happy person.

P: Oh dear [laughter]

M: Tell me, Are you happy?

P; That’s a huge question. Yeah, I like that question. Actually, we all have different moments of happiness. We have different moments of feeling good and feeling great. I think that for me I know that happiness is there when I’m walking down the street and I’ll smile at something innocuous. There’s a dog peeing up against a lamp post. I smile, I think, isn’t the world a wonderful place? I think that’s the perspective for me. When I’m in that happiness state, I can actually look at things and you look at two people holding hands, walking down the street like an old couple walking their dog and you go ‘Yeah, that’s pretty cool’, because you’re in that space where.., it’s that awareness of taking those things in and going the world is good I’m in a happy space, so I’m seeing happiness around me. It’s like when you go to buy a red car on all you see are red cars. All of a sudden your brain is switched on to see more red cars. So if you’re in that space where you’re relatively happy and going along with life and things are good, you start to notice the nice little subtle things that make you go. Yeah, that’s a good, good thing in the world. That’s a good egg.

M: It’s, it’s funny you say that, Yes. So all I can think is you’re talking about this is mindfulness. And there’s been so much discussion recently in the last decade or so about mindfulness and being mindful of being in the moment and to me, you’re talking about (and sorry. And also so much research about how mindfulness can help with happiness.)

P: Yes.

M: Right, but what you’re talking about there are moments of mindfulness. When you’ve stopped and you’re in the moment and you’re enjoying life, what it is. And it doesn’t have to be cakes and glitter and parties and Champagne, it can be an old couple holding hands.

P: Yeah, and you’re right it is mindfulness and I’ve done a bit of work on that and around that for many years because of my eastern philosophy reading. It wasn’t training, I didn’t go into a monastery and sit down and cross my legs for 20 hours. You know, I just read about it and I went I can do this. I can start journaling, and I can start making the most of moments and recognising those moments. So, yes, you’re right. There is a lot of mindfulness in there.

M: Yeah and a few years ago, I never would have had this conversation with you about mindfulness.

P: It comes to each of us in its own way. And I think that’s something you’ve got to understand with happiness. You can’t force it. You can’t just go I’m going to be instantly happy straightaway. It is a process. It takes time. It takes investment. It takes being open to it and then buying in as we said.

M: Yeah, yeah, and I think for me, my journey is different to yours in that I followed that path of success. That was what my parents instilled in me. Work hard at school, get a good job, get a house. You know, follow all the major milestones that everyone, society, just said you should. And it took a pretty significant event in my life for me to reassess my life, which had, until that point been successful.

P: Yeah and within that success you were happy because you were ticking the boxes.

M: Well no, I wasn’t that’s the whole point. So there’s definitely something to be said for those moments of achieving success. I mean, they’re great who doesn’t want to win? Right?

P: [Laughter]

M: But since the accident and since I’ve started exploring a lot of these positive psychology concepts, and Eastern and Western philosophy now, ideals and ideas; I can say that I’m that person stopping the street and going aww when the old couple across the road are together holding each other’s hand, you know, and I’m such a happier, more relaxed, less stressed person than I was and I 100% credit that to nearly dying. Let’s be really honest. It’s the ‘ah ha’ moment that on a lot of people, a lot of people who go through significant trauma have that ‘ah ha’ moment and reassess how they live their lives.

P: Definitely

M: But it’s such a shame and such a waste that it takes that to happen to, I don’t know, the 1 to 5 to 10% of the population, I’m making up numbers here, for them to reassess their lives and go surely there’s more to life than having a house and a job, a stressful job at that. There is so much more out there and again that’s why I think this podcast is so important. I don’t want people to have to nearly die to realise that this mortal life.

P: It is about talking about it and having the conversations with people and I think that’s where I was maybe a little bit lucky in terms of the world that I lived in in my creative, artistic world is that you come up against those people so much more often than you wouldn’t know corporate environment. There’s more. There’s Mohe. There’s more need for cynicism in a corporate environment in the arts world, it’s the opposite. So I think maybe that’s where I was fortunate in my experiences up until that point. So it allowed me freely to explore that a little bit more.

M: But on that you don’t need to be a cynic to be in a corporate environment. You can be happy and you can be happy go lucky even and a little bit carefree and still get your job done well.

P: Yep, I would agree with you there.

M: And that’s where my balance was off before and I hope that just by debunking a lot of the weird, hippie, new age ways that we often talk about this. We talk in platitudes, you know, be positive and all that which really turns a lot of people off. Australians in particular we are so cynical, so so cynical.

P: [Laughter]

M: So, I hope that by us having a good balance and a bit of a laugh between us, we can help some people to realise that there’s so much more life. And you’ve only got one life.

P: Make the most of it while you’ve got it.

M: Be happy.

P: [Laughter] Damn it! [sarcastic tone]

All right. I do just want to say before we go that we are launching this podcast on International Happiness Day, 20th March.

P: Yay

M: So thank you for your listening today, we’re very aware that there is a lot going on in the world today with the Corona virus or Covid 19. And it’s making a lot of people particularly anxious, and for the right reasons, so be kind to each other. Try and have a bit of a laugh.

P: Be part of a community, not part of the self.

M: Yeah, definitely.

P: It’s time to be mindful of others as well as looking out for yourself.

M: And definitely as part of the research that I’ve been doing from my book one of the recurring themes that comes up with people who are resilient and happy in their lives is those social bonds and social relationships. So I know this might sound a bit weird to the millennials out there. The rest of you, you’ll remember the day when you used to pick up the phone and make a phone call with it. So I’m asking you all out there to pick up the phone, particularly if you’ve got elderly relatives or friends who are self-isolating. Pick up the phone. Have a chat with someone today. That’s my challenge to you all.

P: Call your Grandma.

M: Yeah, exactly. Call Mom. Call you Grandma. Have a bit of a chat. It could be just five minutes but take the step to just keep those relationships going because it could be a very lonely time in general in today’s world, but particularly if we’re self-isolating with all that’s going on with the corona virus.

P: Very true

M: Yeah, not a good time to be sad.

Alright, We’ve gone over time for our first episode already. [Laughter]

P: Oops, that’s probably me..

M: So Pete before we go, our listeners, I’m sure hooked already. That’s really arrogant, I’m going to take that back.

P: [Laughter]

M: But do let us know. Can you give us just a really brief heads up for what people can expect in future episodes? So what are we going to cover?

P: Lots of different topics.

We’re going to talk about Awe and inspiration and how important is to be inspired by things. Take the time out for that. We’re going to talk about mindfulness because it’s part of one of the pillars of happiness. And we’ll talk about joy. We’re even going to talk about meditation.

M: Yeah, that was a big one for me. I don’t know about all that.

P: We are going to be meditating and ohm-ing and doing singing bowls and bells, people so get ready.

M: We also have some great interviews with people, amazing people to bring to you.

P: Inspiring people.

M: Yeah, So don’t forget to subscribe so that you can stay abreast of all our future episodes and thank you for joining us.

P: Thanks for coming along, look forward to seeing you again. Bye M: Bye

Meet besties Marie and Pete

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

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

podcast

Self-Compassion and Being Kind to Yourself (E12)

Happiness for Cynics podcast – episode 12

Transcript

COVID-19 Check-in (E11)

Happiness for Cynics podcast – Episode 11

Things we Referenced in This Episode

Transcript

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

Happiness for Cynics podcast

Transcription

Meet besties Marie and Pete

Being Alone Can Make you Happier (E7)

Happiness for Cynics podcast – episode 7

Transcription

Meet besties Marie and Pete

What is Flow and How to Find it (E5)

Happiness for Cynics podcast – episode 5

Transcription

Meet besties Marie and Pete

Bringing Awe and Inspiration into Your Life (E4)

Happiness for Cynics podcast – episode 4

Transcription

Meet besties Marie and Pete

The Importance of Gratitude (E3)

Happiness for Cynics podcast – season 1, episode 3

Transcription

Meet besties Marie and Pete

Happiness at Work (E2)

Happiness for Cynics podcast – season 1, episode 1

Transcription

Meet besties Marie and Pete

What is Happiness? (E1)

Happiness for Cynics podcast – season 1, episode 1

Transcript

Meet besties Marie and Pete

About Marie

Podcast: Happiness for Cynics

Book: Self-care is church for non-believers

podcast

Happiness for Cynics podcast – episode 12

Transcript

Happiness for Cynics podcast – Episode 11

Things we Referenced in This Episode

Transcript

Happiness for Cynics podcast

Transcription

Meet besties Marie and Pete

Happiness for Cynics podcast – episode 7

Transcription

Meet besties Marie and Pete

Happiness for Cynics podcast – episode 5

Transcription

Meet besties Marie and Pete

Happiness for Cynics podcast – episode 4

Transcription

Meet besties Marie and Pete

Happiness for Cynics podcast – season 1, episode 3

Transcription

Meet besties Marie and Pete

Happiness for Cynics podcast – season 1, episode 1

Transcription

Meet besties Marie and Pete

Happiness for Cynics podcast – season 1, episode 1

Transcript

Meet besties Marie and Pete

Footer

About Marie

Podcast: Happiness for Cynics

Book: Self-care is church for non-believers