EP #98- Why We Should Rethink Our Philosophy On Happiness with Stephanie Harrison, Founder of The New Happy & Positive Psychologist

(gentle music) - What we want to do instead, if we wanna be happier, is to create daily experiences that are fulfilling and meaningful, doing things that connect us with other people, that give us a chance to help them and to make a difference in the world, finding ways to show up that are, that promote joy, not just for you, but for other people. - Welcome back to another episode of Every Day in Dorfins. - A mental health podcast focused on the importance of finding joy and happiness in daily living. I'm your host, Stella Stafnables, and this week I really wanted to explore the science and philosophy behind what it means to lead a healthy and happy life and how we can bring happiness into our daily living. And what I find to be so fascinating about happiness is that I think a lot of people really attribute their own happiness and well-being towards things that are external to them, like their achievements or the success that they have or the outcomes from their goals, all of these things that are outside of them. But really what I've come to learn and what I talk about here with my guest this week on the podcast is a new philosophy of happiness and finding that within yourself. So this week I'm so thrilled to have Stephanie Harrison on the podcast, Stephanie received her masters from the University of Pennsylvania and applied positive psychology and she's the founder of the new Happy, which is a media company dedicated to providing science-backed tips and strategies for sparking greater joy into your life. In this episode, Stephanie shares where the inspiration for the new Happy came from, some of her favorite learnings from positive psychology and principles that are foundational to her theory on happiness. We also talk about certain strategies that you can adopt to generate greater well-being into your life, the distinction between toxic positivity and positive psychology, the importance of mindset and where you focus your attention on certain things in life and lastly, Stephanie's perspective on health and what brings her a bit of endorphins in life. I'm super excited for you guys to hear this episode, but before we get into it, reminder to like, rate, and review this podcast on whichever platform you prefer and follow along on Instagram at everyday endorphins to stay up to date with all episodes, podcast events, and more. Hi, Stephanie. Thank you so much for coming on to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me. I am so grateful and thrilled to be here. I am really excited to have you as a guest because I really admire like everything that you've built with the new Happy and personally just all the steps that you've taken along your career path. We connected briefly about this, like maybe a few weeks ago or a month ago, but one of my undergraduate studies was in psychology and philosophy and I took a positive psychology course. So learning that you got your masters and applied positive psychology was just so fascinating to me. Thank you. It was a really amazing experience. I feel so grateful and I'm so excited that so many people, so many classes and universities are offering these experiences for undergrad now. It's incredible to have the chance to get that knowledge out there. Yeah, absolutely. And positive psychology, at least at Washe was one of the most popular classes and you have to wait until you're a senior in college, second semester, to even be able to take the course and get off the wait list. And I think especially being in a college environment, so many people in that age group are just seeking the tools and the steps to finding greater joy in life. So it's no surprise to me why positive psych was such a popular class. And I actually had the opportunity to interview the professor of positive psychology at Washe, Dr. Tim Bono, on the podcast after I had taken the class to kind of discuss really like a high level recap of the course, which I think a lot of my listeners found to be super valuable because it really kind of condensed the learnings from that class into like a 50 minute interview. But as I'm sure you know, there's no way you can talk about all of the principles of positive psychology in one interview. There's so much to it. That's so cool. What an amazing thing to offer. And I love that I love that he was willing to do that and to share the wisdom of that class with the broader audience. Yeah. I mean, something that I'm really interested in learning more about is what got you interested in the study of positive psychology? And really like, what is the field of positive psychology? Those are great questions. I think that positive psychology in a nutshell, I'll start there was a movement that began really in around 2000 to start bringing the scientific rigor to what is it that helps people to thrive in their lives. And it was based upon this recognition that the tools that were required to help people to navigate and overcome depression and anxiety, other mental health challenges might not be the same ones that were needed to help people to move towards state of flourishing or of greater well-being. And really inviting researchers to bring their academic rigor to the field to look for the interventions and the practices and the the incidents of well-being and how to cultivate it. And I think for me, the reason that I became so interested in it was that for my whole life, I've always been very interested in well-being. And specifically for me, I've always been interested in more of a macro understanding of well-being. So more of the big picture, you know, what is it that creates flourishing societies, flourishing communities, flourishing systems that help people who are a part of those systems to experience greater well-being? And the fact that there was this academic study that was starting to be devoted to that, to looking into those questions, was truly amazing and so exciting to me that we were able to bring this set of, essentially this set of scientific tools to explore these questions that have been addressed from other angles, you know, through philosophy and religion and through every, you know, person's kind of individual cultivation of wisdom and add this new layer of academic study on top of it. So for me, it was this new dimension of inquiry that I found really exciting and that's what drew me to it. - Yeah, and there's so many studies that I came to learn about in the positive psychology course that really helped to kind of articulate these science back tools that can help promote greater well-being and happiness in life. And something that I found to be really fascinating about this semester class that I took on positive psychology was that it's on the science of just becoming happier. And I think there's this myth or this misconception around like toxic positivity versus like positive psychology. Can you talk a little bit more about the nuance between those two? - Yeah, that's such a great question. I'm so glad you bring that up because I would say that from every person in the field of positive psychology that I have ever connected with or spoken to would all agree categorically that toxic positivity is not what we are advocating for or arguing is the solution to life's ill. So I think that when people talk about toxic positivity, they're often talking about how you treat your feelings. So believing that you need to only feel positive emotions or that you should suppress any difficult or in the research phrase, it's negative, but it would be kind of challenging or difficult emotions. That you need to suppress those, that they're not, they're bad, you shouldn't have ever, I ever have any of those problems or feelings, right? That's sort of the feeling that is aligned with this idea of toxic positivity. And I think that the reason why many people have flagged this as a problem is because so many of us have never been taught not only just to deal with our own difficult emotions, but to deal with the emotions of other people and managing and working through those things collectively together. And so too many people have had this experience where they are, they're sad, they're angry, they're having a difficult time and they tell somebody about it. And the response that they get back is along the lines of it could be worse or you should just feel better about this or at least you don't have XYZ problem, right? Those are all incredibly invalidating responses to a set of emotions. And that is a very hurtful experience for people. So that's what I think of when I think of toxic positivity. And forcing your emotions does not work. That is not something that anyone is advocating for. But what positive psychology argues is that we have the power to train our attention and to direct our consciousness towards these avenues that can be cultivated, that bring more positivity in our lives, but positivity in a much broader, more generative sense of joy and connection and compassion and empathy and wisdom and wonder and awe and all of these other positive experiences that people yearn for and hope for in their lives. And it's a deliberate and conscious effort frequently but it doesn't mean denying the other parts of our human experience that are inevitably difficult or challenging. Yeah, that's such a beautiful answer. And I-- have one more question really about the distinction between toxic positivity and positive psychology before we get into more of your career path, your journey, and really how you decided to create the new happy. But speaking back to this idea around toxic positivity, not really allowing you to feel your emotions, acknowledge them, you mentioned the language around, you know, you could have it much worse or, you know, just try, like invalidating other people's feelings and thoughts. How do you draw the line between something that is invalidating, but also trying to kind of reframe the experience or the negative emotion. So maybe someone might argue, well, you know, the response by saying, well, you know, you could have it much worse is putting it into perspective. And so, you know, maybe they're trying to help the other person not ruminate on that experience. Just simply shift their perspective and recognize that right now it might feel really difficult, but in the long term, it might not loom as large. So where is the distinction between those two responses or behaviors when someone maybe approaches you with feeling upset or stressed or anxious? Such a great question. I'm so glad you asked that. I think there's two things that I would think about in a situation like that. The first is that validating someone's emotions and their experience should always come before any sort of advice or perspective, inciting or anything where you're trying to change their state. So you as a friend, let's say, your job, I believe, is related to simply honor that person, your friend's experience and to say, you know, things like, yeah, that must be really hard or tell me more about that or, you know, what happened next, like inviting them to share and to process their feelings in a meaningful way. I think when you do that, most people are actually quite adept at reframing it themselves, you know, I don't think that most people, when they're sharing their pain, they're not looking for you to solve their problem. And in fact, when you do, you often end up pushing them away because they feel unheard or they feel like their problem doesn't matter. And so when you are, when you simply focus on validating and being present with them in their pain and in their suffering, they are completely capable of coming to that state of reflection or reframing or identifying the opportunity or the next step. But they, they're, you know, I think most people are not going to get there in a meaningful way when you're sort of pushing them towards it, you know, like trying to force them to see things in a different way. The other thing is that, of course, there are times when that might be very hard for people and they can't, they even with the validation, they might not be able to get there on their own. And if they are asking for your help in terms of another way to think about it, then I would say, you can offer a different perspective and perhaps it's in the way that you deliver it in terms of saying something like, you know, would you like some help in thinking about another way to think about this? And then if they say, yes, great. If not, then it's, it's not really your responsibility to change the way they think about something. And you simply cannot change the way somebody feels about something. And I think that the, the impulse to try and fix things is often more so, it's our inner stuff that's getting in the way. Like we're uncomfortable with our pain and what they're going through. And if we can learn how to tolerate that to stress and to show up with compassion for them, then we don't feel the need to kind of fix them in that way because it's not, we're not having this internal reaction in ourselves. You know, one thing I've noticed a lot is that people who have been through a lot of challenges in their lives are very good at simply sitting with you when you're in pain and struggling because they know that that is ultimately the most sort of healing and supportive thing they can do. And so I would really encourage people to try just simply honoring their friends or their loved ones' experience and being present with them and seeing what happens, not feeling like they have to do anything else. You bring up so many great points, really like this idea or notion that maybe when we tell someone, they should feel a certain way. Or we're trying to offer advice. Maybe we're actually somehow subconsciously projecting our own pain and our challenges and our discomfort onto the other person. Maybe this isn't the case every time, but perhaps that might be like the driving, motivating factor or that's something that might be causing us to behave in that way. So I really love your point around just learning to sit and actively listen and be present with them as something that's really healing. And I think that's also really hard to do. When you see someone in pain and someone that's struggling, it's really hard to sit back and just actively listen. I think it's in our human nature to want to help and to want to fix. Maybe more so for women than men, like having this nurturing quality. But it's interesting to see how that can sometimes actually backfire. Yeah, I think that honestly, I think that to your point so much of it is driven by our own discomfort. And because we just haven't been given these tools about how to be present with people in these hard moments. And so if I'm sitting with a friend, and they, of course, if they're upset, I'm going to be really upset too, right? I don't want to see my friend in pain. And that's a difficult experience for me. But what happens far too frequently is that I end up making it about myself and my own pain. So I try to fix what they're going through. So I don't have to feel uncomfortable anymore. And in fact, that is something that tends to prolong their pain. And so this act of care, the real way that I think we can help each other is through learning how to tolerate the experience of discomfort. And then putting our own pain aside and saying, what is it that will help serve this person who I'm with today? How can I make this something that benefits them rather than trying to ease my own stress and kind of my worries and fears about this moment and really offer them the compassion and the empathy that they need right now? Yeah, totally. And I think this point around learning to sit with your own discomfort and tolerate it and work through it so that you can help your loved one going through a difficult time really speaks to this idea around the importance of taking care of yourself so that you can actually take care of others. And I think that's really like a fundamental part of the new happy. And I'd love for you to talk a little bit more about how you came to develop the new happy and how you perhaps developed this new philosophy on happiness and what that looks like. Yeah, of course. Thank you so much for asking. The new happy developed out of my own difficult times. So many things are born from these difficult experiences. We have-- I was pursuing this idea of what I thought happiness was. The one that I had been conditioned to believe by our society that if you get certain things, if you achieve certain milestones, then eventually you will become happy. And it's this very acquisitive capitalistic definition of success that really underpins a lot of our Western culture. And I realized that it wasn't working for me. And in fact, it was actually making me incredibly miserable. It was leading to difficulties with my mental health, struggles in my relationships. I just was having a really hard time. And I sort of had this moment where I looked around and thought, why is this not working? What is it that I'm doing wrong? And I had asked myself that question many times before. But for the first time, I realized maybe it wasn't something I was doing wrong. Maybe it was actually the way I was thinking about happiness that was wrong. And that was a really big light bulb moment for me of recognizing that perhaps there was something that had happened. This belief I had developed that was leading me in all of these other directions that were detrimental to my well-being and the well-being of those around me. And so that's what led me to pen for my master's degree. I wanted to study these topics from a scientific perspective and figure out what the research was saying about the way we define happiness and how it affects us. And while I was there, I ended up writing my capstone, my thesis on what I believed was wrong and how I thought we could start to fix it, what a better belief in well-being would be. And then after I graduated from my master's program, I was working full time at the time. And I wasn't really sure how to start talking about these ideas or sharing them or to be honest, if anyone would even be interested. And so I started an email newsletter. That's how the new-- happy began back in 2018 and just started sending out an article every week with a couple of thoughts and ideas and some tools that people could use to reframe the way they think of happiness. And it was something I loved to do and I felt so passionate about it and eventually in 2020 I decided I wanted to start working on it full time and left my full time job at the time and I started building the new happy which really is an online media company now and this philosophy that I've developed and I've been working on my first book which is going to be outlining all of the details behind it and how people can start to live it. That's so exciting. First of all congratulations for the pursuit of this new book and so fascinating to see how the new happy has developed over the course of time. Something that I think is so unique and so special about what you built is how on the Instagram page and all of your newsletters every single piece of happiness advice or something that you can put in your toolkit to lead a healthier and happier life is really centered around artwork. And I think the artwork is so fascinating. Can you speak a little bit more to the inspiration behind pairing words and phrases with these beautiful symbols that you've created? Thank you so much. I'm so grateful you like it. I have always loved art and wanted to explore it but when I was growing up it didn't really seem like something I could do as a career. I didn't ever entertain the idea that there was something that I could do that would be artistic and nature. And when I was starting, when I decided to go full time on the new happy, I thought, you know, here we are. It was the beginning of lockdowns or the sort of the middle of the pandemic and I just, you know, I thought, okay, everyone is, everyone is using social media. Everyone is at home and people are really struggling. You know, there's a lot of challenges going on right now that many of us are dealing with without the tools that we need to get through it. And so I thought, hey, maybe this is a moment where I can start to communicate these ideas to people and do it in a way that cuts through the noise and delivers it in a totally different way. And so I started coming up with this visual language for emotions and experiences and feelings and interventions and all people, relationships and started exploring how I would depict these messages of our philosophy in a really digestible and ideally delightful and joyful way that connect with people. You know, I think that for so many people, they resonate with images in a way that perhaps is not the same as with words. You know, it's at least for me, I find it easier sometimes to remember an image and hold on to that as a learning aid and to kind of grasp onto it. And so I started creating these little pieces to communicate these ideas and starting to share that. And it kind of grew beyond my wildest expectations. I really was so honored that people were connecting with them. And so now we have this offering where we share a piece of artwork every day, whether it's on social or in our daily newsletter. And then we also have a podcast for people who are more interested in audio learning and people who want to read can read the newsletter. So we're trying to reach people with these messages in the ways that they like to receive them to connect with the content in a way that's meaningful for them. Yeah, that's so creative and so needed. Because I think especially with advice, it's so hard for ourselves to take our own advice. Like it's, it's hard to give it, but it's hard to take it. And I think a lot of that has to do with like perhaps timing of when the advice is given and how it's shared. And it's really, you know, it's a really special moment. The minute that something lands and resonates and you feel empowered to actually implement that piece of advice, you know, in your life. And something that I really just love about the artwork is how so many people can look at what's on the page, look at what's on Instagram or in the newsletter and can come to interpret it differently and figure out a way that is useful for them. So for example, I'm, you know, right now I'm looking at my phone and I'm looking at this one post from around Thanksgiving and it was, it's a grid of like 16 gray dots. And it says looking at life and then next to it, it says seeing the good and the gray dots are now like a few of them are different colors, like yellow, pink, orange and red. And then towards the right side of the page, it says appreciating it. And instead of all the gray dots there, it's these massive like circles of color. And I just think that's so beautiful because the way I interpreted this was how you need to actively bring your attention to the things that are positive in life and the things that bring you joy and happiness. And when you see it and you do things in your day to day to really appreciate it to be grateful for it, it colors your whole world, it colors your perspective of life. And so no longer is it this just dull, boring gray grid, but it's colorful, it's vibrant, it's happy. And that's just one way that I saw it. But maybe someone else could look at this image and see something completely different. It's so cool. I thank you. I'm so glad you liked that one. I thought it was, I really, I really loved making that one as well. And it's so funny to your point, like I'll get messages sometimes in email or on Instagram about somebody sharing just like you did, how they interpreted it. And sometimes they see things totally differently where they put their own spin on it. And I'm like, wow, that's amazing. Like I didn't have any of that insight when I was making this and they bring their own beautiful perspective to it, which is so amazing because it feels like this community interpretive project that we're doing together on some level, you know? Yeah. And I think there's so much power in that too, hearing other people's perspectives, seeing really how this might be affecting them in their lives. And something that I also really love is that there's such a wide variety of content or tips that you offer on your page from the way in which we appreciate the good things in life to learning how to change our behaviors to do things that actually serve us in the long term. So my question here is really, how do you decide like the types of content that you're going to share? Because when we think about positive psychology, there's so many different, you know, avenues that we can go down. So what are those different topics perhaps that you discuss in the new happy? Yeah, it's such a great question. I think like if I had to describe the overarching philosophy and a brief sentence, it would be embodying compassion for yourself and for others and learning how to do that essentially. And I think that the beauty of that is it's very broad. So there's a lot, a lot that you can do that goes under that because, you know, when I think about how I try to show up and live by this philosophy every day, you know, I have my moments every single day where I fall short, you know, where I'm, I say something mean to myself or I'm not as patient with somebody as I wish I was or I, you know, I'm rushing through something and I miss a chance to help somebody, you know, whatever, whatever it is, whatever way that I, that I didn't, didn't embody these, these virtues that I think are, you know, all important. And, you know, a lot of the, a lot of those moments end up becoming little, little pieces because I think about, well, what would I have done differently or what would have helped me in that moment to make a different choice? What would have, what would a piece of advice been to help me be more patient than understanding with somebody, for example? And then that turns into a piece to help not just, you know, our community, but it also also helps me to remember, hey, here's something that might, might serve you and it might help you the next time that that moment's about to happen as a new little nudge that perhaps you bring it to mind and you make a different choice. And I think so much of what, so much of what I believe is that it's the small little choices that matter because it's not, it's not, no one, no one develops virtue in a day, right? Like no one, no one is developing these capacities that take a long time, that take a lifetime. It's the accumulation of these small choices to move towards a more compassionate, a kind of behavior in the moment. And over time, they, they transform you, they transform you into an entirely different person and into a happier person. And so when you make a different choice in that small moment, it's not just one different choice you're making, you're, you're adding up your, you're adding to this accumulation of this, of this person that you're working to become and to fulfill the, you know, the kind of the great potential within you. And so my thought is that if we can meet people with these small moments and just for a moment they are empowered to make one different choice that leads them to more compassion for themselves or others then that's what success means to me is just having the potential to make that one little choice and so there's there's my own life as inspiration in the ways in which I'm not embodying what I what I want to and they often hear from our community members about things they're struggling with that they would like some help with and then a lot of it comes from from kind of the the bulk of the philosophy that I've developed and thinking you know how do we do something like break down gratitude as a concept and make it something that's fresh and fun and different and not didactic in any way but that's appealing and hopefully something that's nice for people to practice that they that they want to experience. Yeah that's a really good point around like what you just mentioned around like making gratitude for example something that's fun that's fresh that's relatable I think in like the wellness community and over the past few years as we've seen the wellness industry perhaps just really grow and boom there's so many buzzwords now like practice gratitude meditate or and it's hard to get these practices to really stick and land with people because maybe someone is thinking to themselves well what does it mean to practice gratitude does that am I going to be happier if I sit down and I write down like the things that I'm grateful for every single day like maybe that how does that system how is that sustainable and you know we do know that there are certain practices like writing down what you're grateful for or however you want to do with that like over time will will help with your well-being but if you're really struggling like just even doing like a simple act of like getting up and going for a walk is can be really challenging so what is your perspective on that or you know what is your advice to people who are looking to make those small behavior changes but even just like the tiniest ones to to kickstart their day are the hardest things to do it's so true I mean I've been there as well where the idea of just like getting up to go for a walk feels gargantuan like almost you know too difficult to contemplate and I think that actually like you've already articulated the answer it's making the smallest possible choice that you can and it's just reaching for like a slightly a slightly better choice whenever whenever you can so you know I think like one thing I've noticed in myself and I'm curious to hear if you if you connect with this is that I find it so easy to get into ruts you know and to think like hey I'm the way I do something is the way it's always going to be you know just for example like we we get into these routines and these habits where you know you get dressed in the same way every day you eat the same breakfast every day you take the same route to work every day you do your work and you go home and you end up kind of just getting into this position where it's easy to forget how much agency you do have and so for me one thing I've found very helpful is if I'm feeling like I'm having a hard time reminding myself of my own agency in a small way so I always tell people like if you're feeling this way do one thing that's different no matter how strange or small it is like make yourself a completely different breakfast than you usually do or drive the opposite way to work or if you normally go straight home at the end of the day like drive to a park and sit there for a few minutes and you know look at the look at nature whatever it is that reminds you that you do have choice and you have the chance to to take these different pathways you know I think that the a great deal of it is reminding ourselves this is what I can do this is what's in within my power and even if I'm in a hard situation where there's a lot that isn't within my power right now I can make I can make a choice that that works for me and it's this balance of honoring the reality of your experience and then going back to what we were talking about when we were talking about relationships and being there for somebody then deciding what would serve me in this moment what would support my well-being right now that's a really great piece of advice and I think you know it's something I actually want to start practicing because I do feel very similarly where it's easy to get in a rut and forget that you do have the agency and you have you have the control to make different decisions and choices in your life and it can be really hard to remember that you do have that agency because I do believe that when you recognize it and you act in alignment with like really like the choices that you want to make you feel empowered to take care of yourself because you're it's like this principle of self-efficacy I think like the more you are are doing things that are benefiting you and that are good for you you'll want to kind of keep doing that and if you feel like you're competent and capable of doing that it's like cyclical it drives further behaviors you know I think something in my own experience that I've noticed that is particularly challenging is um yeah I don't feel it as much anymore because now it's been about a year year and a half since I've graduated from college but leaving school and being in a job and and being in the quote unquote real world like something that I noticed was that there's no more like milestones that you're achieving collectively it's not like I am in a four-year program anymore and I have to graduate from something or I have to get good grades or like I have a job and I and I have my podcast and I teach yoga and I'm like okay what what's next or um you know like what am I working towards um and I think not having like the the cookie cutter mold maybe of like what those milestones are to achieve or what's coming next essentially is very difficult and I I want to believe that many people feel similarly as well what would your advice be to like young adults that are still making that transition out of school um to really like stay in the present and not feel the sense of like being lost when there's no more external milestones to achieve hmm it's um I mean you I can guarantee you're not alone first of all um it's it's not something where you're not the odd one out here um this is I think a fairly universal experience I think that in a way it's very destabilizing to your point to have this track of achievements that you are supposed to go through and meet at these predetermined dates and then to have that feel like it's gone can be very very overwhelming and and difficult and anxiety producing and all of that I would really encourage people to see it as a gift and to recognize that those achievements are not the source of happiness or well-being um they are they are not the the be all and all they are not the gold star that we get they are often in fact things that end up tripping us up and there's a lot of there's a lot of complexity that comes with pursuing these these milestones and these achievements that have been deemed as acceptable by our society and instead what I would encourage people to do is to focus on the experiences and the people that bring them joy and fulfillment that you would do every day because you love to do it not because you're doing it to get to some end milestone there's no there's so many people out there who are putting themselves in a great deal of misery because they think that once they get to xyz place everything will be amazing and they'll be happy and that's essentially what the what we call old happy and in the new happy philosophy it's it's this idea that so many of us have grown up with and what we want to do instead if if we want to be happier is to create daily experiences that are fulfilling and meaningful doing things that connect us with other people that give us a chance to help them and to make a difference in the world and finding ways to show up that are that promote joy not just for you but for other people and the sooner I think it's if I could go back in time and teach my younger self this I would do it in a heartbeat and really as I'm talking I'm realizing that so much of what I am doing with the new happy is trying to do that trying to help people to avoid the what I went through and the the kind of take a little bit of a shortcut so that they can learn this a little bit sooner than I did because I I had no idea that there was so much happiness and joy that were available in living my daily life until I stopped focusing on external achievements as the source of happiness yeah I'm so happy that you share that because I think it's just an experience that so many people can relate to and myself included honestly looking kind of at external achievements or accomplishments as the source of happiness and really trying to be intentional every day to bring it more within myself and recognize that happiness isn't something to be achieved externally but rather you can cultivate it and create it in the maybe the mundane moments and really that's kind of the overarching mission and goal of everyday endorphins it's in the name itself like focusing on the things in life that really bring you joy and happiness and choosing to focus your attention on that. Which I think also really relates to another beautiful graphic that you have on your Instagram that differentiates like three different experiences, what happened versus what I focused on versus the story that I told myself. And the line of what happened is a line of dots that are different colors. And then what I focused on was like maybe four bright pink dots and the rest are gray. And then the story that I tell myself is a line of really big pink and orange dots. And again, like what I take away from that is how what you focus your attention on is really the narrative you create in your mind. Which can serve as a really powerful and detrimental thing. - Exactly, it's a double-ish, orn of an it. (laughing) - Can you talk a little bit more about just about like that experience of like the power of our brains and where we choose to focus our attention? - Yeah, of course. I mean, I think that one thing I really took away from my master's program is that our attention is really one of the most powerful tools that we have available to us. And if you think about one of the classic symptoms of depression is ruminating, right? Going over things that went wrong or things that were difficult over and over again in your mind and directing your attention towards that. And it becomes obviously something that's influenced by so many other factors, but just like keeping it at the idea of the attention level. When your attention is focused on those difficult experiences, then of course you're gonna feel you're gonna have a difficult time, right? It's really painful what you're focusing on. And that's why interventions exist that can help us to learn how to retrain our attention and to focus on other things that we might not be seeing. And if you think about cognitive behavior therapy, which helps people to think about other explanations for events and to reframe the way that there are default interpretation of something is into a more neutral or more accurate perspective. These offerings have the ability to really help people to learn how to shift their attention in a meaningful way. And the same is true for what's positive and what's good in our lives. I'm sure in your class you talked a lot about the negativity bias that we all have and how our brains are wired to pay more attention to what's difficult or what's painful. So we're already playing with a stack deck in a negative way. Like it's already hard to keep our minds focused on what's good in our lives. And I think with that piece in particular, when something happens, the easy route is to focus on, hey, this is what was difficult or bad about this or how it hurt me or what was wrong about the situation. And then from there, our brains move into their little storyteller mode and come up with a story of, okay, well, that happened because you're inadequate or because no one will ever love you or because, you know, whatever the mean things that you say to yourself are. And it becomes a reinforcing mechanism for that. And when we are coached or coach ourselves to take a step back and say, well, actually, I'm missing half the story here. I'm missing half of the picture. And maybe the narrative I'm telling myself isn't actually true. That's empowering. It's difficult. Like it's hard, isn't it? Like when I have those moments with myself which happen all the time, I'm always amazed at how quickly I jump to the worst possible conclusion and to the, the cruelest thing I could say about myself and to the most painful story that I could tell. But, and then obviously reckoning with that can be challenging and learning how to reframe those stories and look for the other evidence. But at the end of the day, it's a practice I think that's really rewarding because it helps us to build and to cultivate our well-being in so many meaningful ways. - Yeah, absolutely. And it also kind of reminds me of what we were talking about earlier is reminding yourself of the agency that you have and the control over your decision. So if you recognize that, you're not just a victim to your thoughts and you are not your thoughts, which was something I learned during my yoga teacher training this was concept about you not being your thoughts, you being separate from them. But if you can start to recognize that, it's really empowering to take a step back and be like, wait, I'm not that. I can actually choose to think better thoughts and things that will make me feel happier and that can be my, the narrative that I tell myself and that can be the life that I choose to lead. It doesn't have to be so negative because I have the power within myself. And, you know, of course, like you said, it's not gonna be overnight. You develop this skill. It's gonna be through the small choices that you make every day to really build that resilience and the power to really reframe those thoughts in your mind to lead it a healthier and happier life. So I just thought that there was such a beautiful connection between what you had just mentioned and what we really talked about earlier. But, you know, a lot of this interview Stephanie, of course, we're talking about happiness and this new philosophy of happiness that you've developed. And, you know, the final question that I have for you on the podcast is something that I ask every guest that comes onto the show and it's really tied into the bread and butter of everyday endorphins finding things in life that bring joy in our day to day. So with that being said, what is something that brings you a bit of endorphins every day? - Oh, I have a lot of great question. I love it. The thing that brings me endorphins and joy every day is mostly connecting with people, the chance to talk to and help and show up for people and to receive that in return. That, to me, is the greatest source of joy that I have access to. And I feel so thankful for the people of this world who are so amazing and who create so many wonderful opportunities to do that. That's a great answer. And I feel very similarly too. And I also think, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we had talked about this in my positive psychology class about how, like, connection and the strength of our interpersonal relationships is a very strong predictor of our well-being. So I think it really goes hand in hand with what you were saying. - Yes. - Exactly. It's science back to you. - That's amazing. Well, Stephanie, thank you so much. It was such a pleasure having you as a guest. Where can my listeners follow along the new happy and connect with you? - Oh, thank you so much for having me. It was such a joy to talk to you. And I so appreciate the amazing work you're doing in the world. So thank you for doing that. You can find us at thenewhappy.com or on social media at New Happy Co on every platform. And you can reach me if you have any questions that's definitely at thenewhappy.com. - Thank you so much. It was such a pleasure getting to chat with you. Thank you. (upbeat music) Thanks for listening to this episode of Everyday Endorphins. If you liked what you heard, make sure to like, rate, and review this podcast on whichever platform you prefer. You can also follow along the Everyday Endorphins Instagram account to stay up to date with episodes, future events, and all things related to mental health, well-being, and happiness. Don't forget to keep spreading endorphins and find things in life that bring you joy every day. Until next time. (upbeat music) [Music]