How to Live a Little Happier with Dr. Laurie Santos

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Well, hello pod squad. Thanks for coming back to, we can do hard things. How come you always get to do the beginning part? Okay, actually everybody pod squad. Stay where you are. Yeah. Don't move go ahead, bear feels a little bit like one-sided here. Hello pod squad. Hello. I'm your space. A be claimed that space. Yank it up your sister. I just want to welcome you back. Here. We are we can do hard things podcast. Uh, we've been talking.

To dr. Laurie Santos. We love her so much and I feel like I am killing this intro, you know why I bet you're killing it, but that's what it's going to be very excited about this. We're talking to dr. Laura said knows about happiness. And so we have some happy news for you. What's the happy news? Abby is out of the, I'm out of the closet. Look at She's Out of the Closet. She is recording. Now in a room. We are in a room pods.

Squat and you are out of the bathroom honey. I know but here's the deal. The pod squad has been so overtly concerned with you being in the closet, but nobody is worried about me being in a basement bathroom. Well, they do tired of that. What they don't know is that my microphone this entire time and computer has been sitting on the toilet and I have been in a room that is like 8 inches by 10 inches, but I think there's some kind of cognitive dissonance that people.

Of to see Abby Wambach speaking, her bold truths in the closet. Make people follow them for sure. Yeah, ironic. Yeah. As Alanis Morissette would probably say it's ironic. But what all the possible should also know is that we have a very emotional relationship with closets. Like I have always done my best creative work in closets. I wrote All Of Love Warrior from a closet. Okay? Then

I admit I got a house and I got an actual office. And so I sat down in the office to write untamed and I could not do it, because office was too big, and there were too many distractions. And we know, I'm like Dory from Nemo whenever there's any, I just and writing is so terrible and horrible. That I would find myself like organizing books or like I'm never organized anything. But when when I have a deadline, I become like home edit. I'm just like all over the place. Our house is never cleaner.

Then when there is a deadline and then the works, my friend Rachel held Evans she died and that is one of the worst things to happen to the spiritual world, but she used to put a posted on her computer. That said Rachel, the next sentence is not in the pantry. So I did that too. But the point is that I actually even though I had that lovely, big office. What did I do? Where did I take my computer? Every day to write Untamed, you wrote the whole book Untamed book in the

Closet of the office in the closet of the office week, which was this tiny, by the way, title thing was Tiny. It was way tiny was like, was not a Walking Corpse space underneath the stairs. No, I hit my head. Every time I stood up her window and scream that way angled ceiling. Yes. She would know I was done writing bite, scrape, fuck over and over again. Okay, but now we're excited y'all. So we are in an office and we're together in this room. We are in an actual room speaking to each other, and that is a happy thing. And I want

You one other happy thing that happened to me this week. Okay? Okay, you know it, okay, just just it's like told you all about it. Okay, my friend Kate, you know, we move to New House Kate Lester's, a friend from our area. She came over and she brought me a plant. Okay, and now I take plans, very seriously now because my son is obsessed with plans. And so he has taught me to Value plans, although not to name them because that is

Personal, I don't know. He told me that's wrong. That's not respecting. The plant nests of plans. That's trying to turn them into people. Hahaha. Okay, we we don't listen to that. We have grand plants gone away to college. We are desperately trying to take care of his plants. So when Kate brought me this plant, I was like, oh my God, my own chance. This is my chance. So I watered it every other day with a special little cup that I had next to the sink and I watched it was getting greener. I felt like it just I just could tell that it was growing and it was so happy. Okay, so take

It's over a couple days ago you sitting at my table and she's about to leave and I say, Kate real quick. How often should I water that plant? I put to the plants on the island. How long should I? How often should I water? Because I'm doing it a lot and she goes well probably never because it's a fake plan. Okay. So what I want you to understand is that I've been watering this plant. I've been seeing it. Turn Greener. What I've been seeing it grow. Okay.

And I just feel like there's a metaphor here, like so many, so Daddy, watering dead plants, like it's good to have real plants and real friends and fellow know something. I'm working with a metaphor, but I think that was kind of happy. Like, oh my God, this is amazing, right? Also, a metaphor for happiness, right? Because in your judgment, your experience of that situation was that that plant was thriving. Yes. And growing. And you had an experience of that that was just

Based on your perception of and I would say it's correct, as a misperception. Yes, what was happening? But nonetheless, it made you happy. It made me. So happy until Kate ruined it. She ruined it. She ruined it baby. But I have a question. What do you think's happening or happened to all that water? I blew try it. I blew try it. Yesterday. You are kidding. You know, I took a blow dryer and I blew dry the fake plant because I don't want to kill.

A fake plant looks like something even. I shouldn't be capable of. Wait. Wait, wait, wait back up. You're saying you're just not going to tell us. That part of the story you have found out. It was a fake plant. I have a problem to solve. I'll go get my hair dryer and I'll shoot it on the plant. Really bubbles. I supposed to do, what, any problems that Glennon has is solved with the hairdryer actual.

I'm Abby, when we were 10, and she was trying to make cookies. The first thing on the recipe said, preheat, the oven. Okay, so we're not a big cooking, baking family. So, her little analytical mind was like preheat. How would I preheat? How would I get The Hobbit oven hot for Diamond was on? So what did she go? Get a, be the hair dryer. She got the hair dryer. So it's this is

And I got caught. So who was it? I think it was. My friend carries mom. I think I was at a friend's house and she walked in. She said, what are you doing? And I said, I'm preheating the oven. I'm getting it. But listen in my own defense, I don't understand cooking but I know words and I looked at that word. He before he thing up before. Okay, it's not pre. If it's you turning it on, right? They should be thanks, Aaron exactly right. And way to actually write 350 degrees. That's right.

It

turn it on and wait till it's 350 degrees. That is just Heating and now preheating. I think that we have actually figured out the exact moment that you and cooking split. That's right. Humiliation of that moment that my family has never effing. Stop telling that story. Well, also, because it didn't make sense. You're like, no, that's not, that's not the way you define it. Like, I'm not going into that territory tonight and I'm bitter about cooking II, very much resent. Every time someone says to be it.

It's just following directions. Cooking is just following directions. No. No, it's a recipe. It's a recipe. Okay, so I pick up a recipe and I'm like, okay, it's just going to tell me what to do. Okay, I'm just going to do is number one. Number two, number three, and then the first census something like julienne, the carrots. And I'm like, what the fuck does that mean? That's not a Direction. That's mocking me. I don't want to get a dictionary to make a salad.

So, no, I'm not. I'm not, I don't know hair dryers. So you what? I know how, my know my way around a hair dryer. Do you think when you got a little tools hair dryer? Every problem looks like something that needs some hot air blowing on it. All right, you guys think? I didn't really know that this was going to go this way. But neither did we? Here we are time to bring some happiness to your week. You did I my face hurts right now. Ivan laughing so hard. Okay, let's let's

Welcome. Dr. Laurie Santos. So she can help us bring this conversation into any sort of reality. So we are so lucky that dr. Laurie Santos is back to answer r-pod squads, happiness questions. Thank you so much. We just jump in and hear from them.

Yeah, let's do it. Hi clennon, sister Nabi. My heart thing. Is this like a bee? I am a huge people pleaser. I love making people feel happy cared for and supported. However, I've crossed them up the line where it has become unhealthy for me. I drain myself for the sake of others, no matter how much it cost me while I'm working on boundaries and putting myself. First. There's an overwhelming amount of guilt. I feel when I can no.

To meet people's expectations have to say no to something, or know that I've disappointed, someone. Do you have any advice on how to cope with or free myself from this inevitable? Guilt that I feel? Thank you so much from your fan. Shannon. Yeah. Well, Shannon, you're not alone in the world. I feel like a lot of people are probably nodding their heads along right now. There is lots of evidence that doing for other people can make us happy, but that's only if we have the bandwidth to

Do for other people. And the problem is that we sometimes don't write like we really have to be putting our own oxygen mask on first before helping other people. Like it's such a Cheesy metaphor that comes out of the airlines. But whenever they say I'm always like yeah attendant like, you know, you're the only one in my world who will say that to me. Thank you. Thank you for giving me permission. But like, we all need permission, right? And I think this is so essential. I mean, I see this in my college students all the time. Like these are incredibly driven students. So many of them are really.

You know, into promoting social justice and action and I watch them like burning out, right? Because they're not kind of giving themselves the bandwidth to like, take a break and take a breath. You need to find ways to kind of say no to give yourself the bandwidth like boundaries are healthy. And then kind of make sure when you're saying, yes, that it really is a real. Yes, you know, you kind of need to kind of give yourself space to be able to say no and sometimes, and if you can't do that, you know, that's a spot with, for some self-compassion right to

Irrigate, okay. Why do I, you know, myself, just one human feel like I can't say no to a million things. Right? Like, you know, what's going on? Like do I think of myself as superhuman? Do I need to give myself a little bit more? Self-kindness. Do I need to reset some of these boundaries. Like, those can often be hard conversations, especially depending on who's doing the asking, but they're really essential ones for you. Able to not feel burnt out all the time. These days. I'm trying to get my students to, to talk a lot about their specific emotions, and we all know,

Emotions like sadness anger. Those can be hard to kind of figure out but we kind of get them with the one. They feel so much that they need better ways. To articulate is overwhelm like overwhelm where you're just like are freaking can't like this just so much. It's not anger, its not sadness. It's not frustration. It's just like I don't have the bandwidth and emotions are signals. Right? Like an overwhelm is a good signal of like this. This means you got a step back like you got to start saying, no,

Go to some of these obligations, right? This is an honest signal of what you're capable of and we don't listen to those honest signals, you know, you get into really nasty territory. So yeah, what's that nasty territory look like like when we don't get wings like addiction, right? It looks like addiction. It looks like you know, really having a full nervous breakdown. It looks like a burn out when you become cynical about even the things you love and the people you love, right? Like you don't want to get there, you want to act on it, go ahead of time.

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Can I sneak in a question between voicemails? Thanks. How do we talk about cultivate deal with happiness with our children? I don't think we do a very good job of that in our culture because we just keep telling them. They should be happy in a million different ways. So, can you give us like, what is the research say about that? What me Askin do. Yeah, I think one thing you can do to make your kids ultimately happier and definitely in

To make them psychologically, healthier is to let them be unhappy. It is to let them fail. It is to let them screw up, it is to let them cry. It's to let them see. You do the same things because that is the way Perfect, by which they do stuff. Yeah. I'm interviewing for my podcast, this wonderful woman, Julia, Lithgow teams who wrote a book about how to raise an adult and she talks a lot about helicopter parenting. She goes through this idea that in all of our anxiety to protect our children.

We're like ruining our own mental health, but we're kind of messing them up to Rally. We've all had the satisfaction of what it means to get through like a difficult task or to like, you know, struggle a little bit and then get to the other side or even struggle a little bit and not get to the other side where you like learn something from it. And we generationally are taking that away from our kids and not letting them feel any negative emotion. We teach them alike - emotion. There's a cure for that, like there's a cure for everything will just blanket it, and that doesn't help them. When like, actually in reality. There's like,

Death and taxes and all these things you have good cures for and like kind of not preparing them for the right world. Yeah. Okay. Let's hear from our next spot squatter High go ahead. I recently asked my husband for a separation and

also stumbled on your podcast around the same time, and it

You know, has been my Saving Grace and I guess my hard question is.

You know, am I doing the right thing? Will I get past these feelings of, I'm an awful person. And

Does my happiness really matter?

Falling out of love with my husband.

Has been awful and I wake up every day. Hoping that maybe today's the day that I convinced myself to be in love with him. Will I move past this and I'll nobody can give me the answer that. I really want to do. I asked him for a divorce or do? I not but that's only I can I can answer that question but

I appreciate you guys so much and I adore Abby and your relationship linen know that even though you don't have all the answers, you are helping in ways that you don't even realize. I love you guys. Thank you.

Well, I mean lots of threads here. I mean first just acknowledging the pain. Like that sucks. Like it sucks to be in a position where the person you thought you were going to be with forever. You're not having those feelings for it sucks to have the uncertainty about what to do. Like, that's a tough tough situation to be in. And I think this is a spot where, you know, these practices of self-compassion can be so good. Like even if it feels like this is a horrible thing and you're a horrible person. You are not the only person to fall out of love with someone.

Like this happens all the time. In fact, probably in like, 50 percent of marriages. So like let's do a little common humanity and recognize that like these things come up then kind of engage in some self-kindness, right? Like this hurts. This sucks. This is a bad thing to go through. You know, what can you do to kind of do something, kind to yourself and researcher Kristin, Neff has this wonderful suggestion at like, when all thing, when everything else fails just give yourself some kind touch. She literally recommends like just taking your arm and leg.

Stroking your arm, like stroking. Your forearm, like you might for like a child who is going through something and the beauty is like, your brain doesn't know the difference, if it's like yourself stroking or someone else. You just feel this touch and feel a little comforted. So you do things that feel kind and then you're try to notice a little bit. When those thoughts come up the like, I'm a horrible person. Like no, you're like, literally like 50 percent of marriages out there that people go through this, right? Kind of common Humanity in mindfulness, you

Terms of the question about, you know, what you should do. I think, you know, she said it right. Like, you probably need to kind of make the decision for yourself. But the thing to know is that either way it goes, you're much more resilient than you think. I mean, it sounds like she already has the answer that she's out of love and she might just need to make the hard decision. But I think the reason that decision is hard as we're doing, you're doing some forecasting about how bad it's going to be like, there's this idea that I'm never going to get over it. You know, the my partner is never going to get over it, like it's just going to suck forever.

This is the good side of hedonic adaptation. It will suck. You know, when you first make that decision. It's going to feel like it's going to suck for a while. But all the evidence points to the fact that it's not going to suck as badly or for as long as you think and so you can kind of trust in your own resilience there and most people who are in that situation. Once they finally make the decision, often have the thought, why didn't I decide to like pull the Band-Aid off sooner? And so yeah, and the I just always remember

Myself, it's hard. Either way. Like, I think, in this position were always like, well, which one's going to, which one's the right one, the wrong one, which one's the easy one, the hard like, but actually there's hard both ways like staying in a relationship that, you know, is not right. For you as hard, leaving a relationship that, you know, is not right for you as hard. So you really do have to just decide what's the right kind of hard, and which she also has this thread where she says, but does my happiness even matter, like that. Can can you speak to the idea?

Of Happiness, as kind of this Zero Sum game and how our happiness Works in ecosystems that she's saying, if I, if I choose my happiness, it means their unhappiness, my kids and happiness. My partner's of Happiness. Like, how does that actually is their studies on that? Yeah. I think this is another spot that we get wrong all the time. I don't think this is like a common perception. I think Mom's do this all the time where it's like, oh, I need to sacrifice my happiness for like, my kids happiness. Like yeah. I'm super anxious about everything in their whole life. But like how else do

I make them happy. What we forget is like a very core mechanism of our emotions is that they are contagious. Like if you're a super anxious, super unhappy mom, like your kids going to pick that up. They're gonna like so crazy short. Are you sure dr. Santos and you know, if you're deeply unhappy in a relationship, you're not making the other person as happy as they

Could be, you know, in some ways you might be giving them a gift to just like, you know, again, rip off the Band-Aid so that that person again, that person at the time might feel like it's never going to get better. But all the studies suggest is not going to be as bad as you are forecasting. And even if it takes some time because grief takes time, right? Like grief is about any loss that we didn't really want, right? And, you know, that even if you're in the position of kind of falling out of love your partner, you have to grieve what you thought it was going to be at first, or what it was in the beginning or something. And so need to kind of give

Give yourself some time to grieve, but you will get stronger. Even if it doesn't feel like it. I remember when I was deciding about my marriage and feeling this way, like, does my happiness even matter? Can I free myself from this without ruining? Everyone's lives. Liz said to me, there's no such thing as one-way Liberation. When you free yourself from something that wasn't meant for you. You are automatically freeing the other person because it's not meant for you. It's not meant for them.

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Okay, let's get to our next voice mailer. My name is Ellie. Hi Lennon, Amanda, Abby, and I am in my 20s and I just look up to y'all so much for different reasons. I would love to know what advice would y'all have? Told yourself in your 20s. Just starting out with career relationships, all the same. Would love to hear it. Bye.

Love it. I was going to say think I wasn't for me. I think that was for you all. So I want to hear you all go with that question. This is good, especially because I have lived a life that I mean, I would say that I basically wake up thinking what fun things can I do today? And I usually actually put them off to later on in the day, but something that I've been trying to do more recently is to actually put it on the table.

List of my life so that I don't miss out. Like, for a long time. I gave myself the reward of doing the fun thing after doing all of the other things that I needed to do, whether it be pay bills, or work out or whatever. And so now I give myself the gift of maybe going surfing first in my day. I mean, it also helps it surfing in the morning is better, but I just m happier all day long and then I go for

My run like right after I surf. So that I get that thing done. Yeah, so it's like instead of holding your breath all day and then breathing breathe first and then the rest of your day has more joy infused into it. Yeah, cool. Yeah. And you are literally putting your to-do list stuff. That is fun. Right? Like you might need the remedial step. First of not, like when does the fun stuff happen in my to do list, but like to make sure it gets in there. Anyway. Yeah, and I think the problem is that, for some of us when we're feeling really time famished. It's the fun stuff that goes out the window.

Do right, like sometimes when I'm looking at my calendar like oh my gosh, I have to squeeze extra stuff in. It's not that work meeting that I hate that goes. It's like, you know my yoga class with my friend. I'm like, well, I guess I'm gonna have to skip yoga this week. I guess I'm not gonna have to sleep as much this week sleep also, so important for mental health and happiness. So just that it is in the priority list at the same level as the bills and all the other stuff is really powerful.

Not to dodge this question, but I have a question about research on this because what she's saying is go back and look at your 20s and it's like we all know that that at the end of our Lives, there's only going to be a few things that matter. I mean like we intellectually know that no one would argue but then even though we know that right now we're not acting as if that were true. What's wrong with us?

- Lee wondering what, when what is wrong with our brains in our lives? That we know that but we're not doing anything. Like everyone has advice for the persons in their 20s, but no one has ever done. The thing. They should have done this one. Yeah, right. This is like sometimes when I talk about my happiness tips, like, and these people say this about my Yale class to, they're like, all of this is common wisdom. Like we already know this stuff and I'll say, well, it's not common practice. Like did you just do all this stuff today?

Like know, right? Like we need some kind of help with it and like, you know, why don't we do it? Our brains are built wrong there that there's that wanting liking disconnect, you know, capitalism. There's lots of messaging coming in that's not telling us to just like, be present and enjoy the joy and like, look out your window that doesn't like so iPhones, you know, so there's a lot of outside pressure to kind of keep us stuck in this in this Rat Race, but then, you know, if you do look at people at end of life, like, none of that stuff is going to matter and again, you know, not to go back to

The Greeks and the Romans here, but you know, this is the concept of carpe diem. It's like seize the day. They don't mean like get through your whole to-do list. It's like seize the day because tomorrow you may die. And when you do the reflection on, what if, what if, what if tomorrow is the last day, you know, what, if someone came down and was like, you know, just going to give you a window when you walk outside and get hit by a car. Nothing you can do about it. Like today's the last day just want to like, give you an FYI. Probably the to-do list would go away, you know, and probably you'd be present with the people you care about in a different way.

Way, you know, you'd want to like do be present with the food that you eat or whatever like you just do things differently. And so that's the I hate the like there's like Carpe Diem on like planners and things like, oh, yeah, like know that they meant something different. They met, come on a shock to know that my entire career started with an essay called Don't Carpe Diem. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but I do think that there is such a wisdom to that. It's like, how do we avoid? The big deathbed regret is like avoiding?

Bedtime regret. It's like how that the Annie Dillard idea of how we spend our days is how we spend our lives. So it's like, how do we divide that up and make it smaller and make sure it's, like, what we really love. At the end of the day is our family and our peace and our joy and our friends. Like, did we, did we spend any time on that today? Yeah, and I think the sad thing is how little how little we do we do this values exercise? With my students where have them come in and, you know, they write a big list of, you know, what are the things you value and they Circle, you all these Virtues Of

Like a spirit of Adventure and learning and all the stuff. And then we do this exercise. Look at a new exercise, new exercise. We're going to have you just write down how you spent your day. Just like a typical day. Like 7 a.m. That. I and then I go back and I say, okay, let's let's match those up. Like, you know, how did those things go together? And they have this moment where they're like crap like, you know, the things that really matter to me. I'm not kind of putting my time into and then there's like the further exercise of like, okay. Well, you know, what would you do differently? And I think it's an

Sighs. We can all do. And and, you know, I'm no better here. Right? Like if I looked at my day today, I mean this Parts fun, but like I had a bunch of stuff that was like staff meeting and boring and emails and data. It's like, wait, you know, if tomorrow was the last day, I really wouldn't have wanted to spend it this way. And so what can we do to restructure our lives? That might mean setting up boundaries, that might mean saying no, that might mean. Recognizing. Hey, I'm not going to get to this next Accolade in the way that, you know, careerist me would want. But that's okay, because deathbed me is

going to be a lot happier about it. And why is me knows? I mean, I think what I would tell my 20 year old self that my 20 year old self would never believe in would still go ahead and live her life the same way. She did, you know, I was talking to my almost 20 year old when he just he's a freshman in college now and just like prompt trying to promise him that you know, he's working his ass off in high school so that he can we get into this college so that then he can work his ass off in this college that then he can get to this job. So that then he could work out his ass off into this job. So that then he can that it's just this constant.

Destination promise of happiness, and there's no there there. I mean, as a writer who, you know, decided that that eventually if I just reached this thing, if this many people read my if this, if this then I'll be happy and then you get there and there's no there there and no matter what happens. You owe you learn that the good news and the bad news is it's just the little freaking things every day. And this is this is another bias that researchers call the arrival of

Elysee, I'll be happy when, you know, filling your, when I'll be happy, when I get married. I'll be happy. When I get that promotion. I'll be happy when I buy a house, right? Then it happens and it's not that it's awful. But it's I mentioned before, the, my Yale students who film their admission acceptance video and like, they find out you got into Yale. They really actually play this little song. It goes Bulldog, Bulldog powwow, and they know they go work out again and they cry. My students will say that was like, one of the happiest moments, but the instant after it was one of their darkest moments because they're

Crap. Now, I gotta like it was all for that and I have to chase the next carrot to get into med school or chase the night. Garrett to get you do my banking job or whatever quite and we're constantly chasing these carrots. We really believe. I think Disney sold us a line. Like we really believe happily ever after but my, as my colleague, Dan Gilbert, who I mentioned before, is fond of saying happily ever after only works, if you have six minutes to live, like it doesn't last that long, like what are you think? It's gonna be. It's gonna you ruined just back to Baseline.

Quickly, oh my gosh. I mean, I relate so much to what you just said, having literally gotten a gold medal, put on my neck, seeing the flag and watching, you know, listening to The Anthem and then literally stepping off of that Podium and being like, okay, I guess I want to do that again and it like the whole thing starts all over. And like I always just thought that's the only amount of time. I'm letting myself celebrate because I've got more

Work

to do here and that's how I rationalize it. That's how you just stay on that rat wheel running and running and running for the happiness. That is always actually there you have access to it. Right? Like however, you want to define happiness. I just feel like we as humans have more control like you're saying dr. Santos. I mean, well, yeah, we often do the same thing. You just mentioned, which is like you get the gold medal. You're on the stand, you find out, you get into your whatever you have this moment, and then you have this deep dark Despair and

Instead of saying, well, hang on. Maybe it wasn't the Rival. Maybe it was the path in the journey and I should did we say? Oh, maybe it wasn't one gold medal. I need to be triple games like and this happens with salary all the time, right? You get to some you know, you get a promotion and you think oh, if I get more money, I'll be happier and then you get more money and you're like, I'm not happy and you don't think maybe the connection with money and happiness isn't what I think. You think, like must be more money. One of my most harrowing interviews that I did for my podcast with this, with this guy. Clay Cockrell.

Is a wealth psychologists to the point zero zero zero one percent. And first of all, like there is a job like wealth psychologist to the point zero. One percent will say, you know, I like I have 500 million dollars, but I'm not a billionaire. Like I just got to get to the billion and he watches them go through these Financial hurdles. So we never think like, oh, it's not the arrival. We always think like, oh, I just need a different arrival, a bigger one. Like that'll make me happy. It's how capitalism always wins, right? It's like The House Always Wins because you can go in and win a little bit.

It but you don't leave you don't say. Oh now I have enough you stay. And then the house went and stood at the end. And I think that's a that's a cool part of it. Because it doesn't mean we're naturally greedy and we're naturally, I mean to actually think about it in terms of like I've heard you say, dr. Santos at like the brain is just a comparison machine. Like it's not that there's something wrong with you. It's just that's the function of your machine is that it can't process. Absolutely.

Loop it can't look and say look I have food and shelter and health. Therefore. I'm happy it can only process the comparison to what you just were or what somebody else is across the street. That's the literally the only processing, it can do, right? So that's that we have to understand about that about ourselves to say like you are incapable of actually assessing your situation. You are only capable of comparing it to something else. It's totally. And that's and that's where in the maybe like, that's where this issue.

Of recognizing a thought is just a thought is powerful and emotion is just emotion is powerful like just because I want to do, that doesn't mean it's real. Just because my brain is delivering me. This information doesn't mean it's real. And that's the one extra thought process we have, right? We can have a meta-level. Say, do I really want to follow that, you know, do I want to shirk capitalism? Do I want to do hard things, but that hard things that don't destroy me, and don't destroy my happiness, and we can think at a meta level if we have the bandwidth to do so, and sometimes it can be really powerful.

While being to do that, let's let's end with that. We're going to hear from our pods squatter of the week. We're going to let you go and we're going to leave you with that thought that we don't have to believe everything. We think right. You can be smarter than our brains. You're just freaking Delight. So damn smart. I'm so grateful for all of your work. I will be listening to all of your podcast on the happiness lab. We actually have our children, listen to them to when they're stuck with us in the car, on the way to South.

Ochre and thanks for taking care of those college kids. We have one now, and they're under so much pressure. Thank thank. Thank you so much.

I'm Jon Meacham author and historian this month, as we celebrate, the accomplishments and Legacies of influential black figures who shaped our nation's history. I invite you to listen to it was said a documentary podcast giving context to some of the most powerful speeches in American history.

But I would like to say that are turning to and that alternative is Justice. It was said, a production of C13 Originals.

Association with the History Channel is available wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, Glennon,

and sister. And Abby. If you're there, my name is Caitlin and I'm sad. Share a fun little moment with you. I was just listening to your latest episode and sharing it with my friend, Rebecca. They have. And I love. And I was introducing her to podcast and we are actually driving right now. She is helping me move across the country and

As we started listening to tissues song, A Truck drove by me. That said Melton on it. And I just had to share that little bit of Joy with you because this has been a very hard process getting here. I'm changing careers and changing cities. Everything just feels very overwhelming right now and this podcast and everything that you guys say. This helps me feel a lot less alone, and I had to thank you for everything that you all do.