Transcript | Ep. 116: Ask Unladylike: Happiness vs. Toxic Positivity

[CLIP] Judy Garland - C’mon Get Happy

[Theme music]

Caroline: Well hey Cristen

Cristen: Well hello Caroline

Caroline: And hello to all y’all out there. Today, it is our second installment of Ask Unladylike, where we answer YOUR burning questions about complicated friendships, uncomfortable family issues, toxic workplaces and dealing with feelings!

Cristen: Yeah, you know, it's just like the old saying, if Google can't answer it, ask Unladylike!

Caroline: Yes, exactly, I have a pillow with that cross-stitched on it, actually.

Cristen: Watch out Home Goods. This episode, we are pursuing happiness. Which is WAY easier said than done. So we've called in the big guns. Or should I say the Ivy League guns??

Caroline: More like Ivy League brains?

Cristen: Hmm Yes, yes.

Caroline: Our expert advice guide is Yale cognitive scientist, psychology professor, and host of The Happiness Lab podcast, Dr. Laurie Santos. Laurie also created a whole course called the “The Science of Well-Being,” and get this, y'all. It's Yale's most popular class EVER.

Cristen: I mean, that is incredible. But Caroline, I've gotta be honest with you that I have a knee-jerk skepticism when it comes to happiness.

Caroline: OK, that’s dark

Cristen: Well, OK, especially as women, you know, we're often expected to smile and at least look happy all the time, right? So there's that. And overemphasizing happiness can just turn into toxic positivity, you know?

Caroline: Yeah, yeah, I guess it’s worse when you force it.

Cristen: Definitely. But. BUT. Here’s the good news. I am happy to report that I learned SO much from talking to Laurie and have already started applying some of her advice to my own life!

Caroline: OK, OK! Well, that’s a sign of a good advice episode.

Cristen: Yeah!

Caroline: All right, well let's get into it!

[Stinger]

Caroline: Laurie, thank you for joining us, this is - we're very excited to talk to you. We love your work.

Laurie: Oh, thanks so much. Thanks so much for having me on the show.

Caroline: Yeah. So to start off. Happiness is a term that does get thrown around a lot. What does it mean to you?

Laurie: Yeah, well, I think happiness means all kinds of things, like I'm a nerdy professor and I tend to use kind of nerdy professor terms for things. And so scientists tend to define happiness in two ways. They think of happiness as having joy in your life and having joy with your life. So having joy in your life means you just have lots of positive emotions, right? You're joyful and happy and laughing. And you do that at a ratio that's higher than the negative emotions like sadness and the anger and frustration and stuff. But being happy with your life is a little bit different. It's really the answer to this question about how satisfied are you overall with your life. And those things can vary like, you know, right right now here at Yale, I live we have all kinds of folks who live in my residential college, but my dean and her wife just had a new baby and they're really happy with their life. You know, so much meaning and satisfaction comes out of having a newborn. But in their life, it's kind of frustrating, rightm like no sleeping, like, you know, a lot of negative emotions. So they can vary. But best case scenario is you're feeling happy in your life and with your life. You have lots of positive emotions, but you also feel like you're doing things that are meaningful, that make you satisfied with your life.

Cristen: Well, you know,kind of on the flip side of that, life is hard and challenging, obviously, like we've all been going through it, especially in the pandemic. So is the idea of long-term happiness an unrealistic goal?

Laurie: I think, you know, definitely not, I mean, for a couple of reasons, right? I mean, the pandemic has sucked, to be totally honest. Right. And there's lots of parts of life that suck. I think this is you know one of the most important things you can realize about human nature, which is like there's going to be suffering. You know, the Buddhists got this one right for sure, way, way, way back in the day. But, you know, the evidence really suggests that we don't necessarily have to experience that suffering just because times are tough. There are lots of strategies we can use to feel better. And I think this is the great message of a lot of the research in happiness right now, which is that we have some control even if we can't control the situation, even if we can't control this awful pandemic that's happening while we're having this conversation, we can control our reaction to it. We can control the strategies and the habits that we build in. And so that's pretty good news. I think we really can achieve lasting happiness with the right strategies.

Caroline: Based on your research, when are people actually the happiest in their lives?

Laurie: Yeah, the research really shows that we're happiest in spots that we don't necessarily think of as the happiest. Right. You know, I think if people were to simulate what would make them the most happy, they think, well, I'd be rich or, you know, I'd be on some fantastic vacation or, you know, I'd be like perfect and skinny and have the perfect job and all these things. Right. But the science shows the circumstances don't matter as much as we think. We are happiness when we're doing for others. We are happiest when we're connecting with others. Like anything involving other social agents makes us really happy. In fact, there's some evidence suggesting that social connection is a necessary condition for happiness. So we really need it to be happier. We're also happiest when we're present, no matter what's actually going on. You know, even if you're just noticing the day and like looking out at the spring flowers or looking at your partner's smile. Right. Just the simple act of being present and noticing makes us happier. And I think, you know, I mentioned both of these because, again, they go against our intuitions. You know, we spend so much of our time not being present, being frantic, trying to get to the next thing, you know, like try to you know, we often even when we're going through a tough time, sometimes our instinct is like to be solo. You know, I know there are lots of nights, you know, during the pandemic when I've had a rough week and I'm like, I'm just going to plop and watch Netflix and I don't want to talk to another human at all. But, you know, the research really shows that that's not the right strategy. And I think this is another message that comes from the science is that our intuitions are just really bad. You know, it's not like we're not trying to be happier. We're trying, we're just doing it the wrong way.

Cristen: So you just said, you know, in the case of that, I want to plop down and watch Netflix alone and shut out the world. That that's not the right strategy.

Laurie: Shocking, huh?

Cristen: Right. So what would be the right strategy then?

Laurie: Yeah, I mean, there's lots of good ways to deal with negative emotions, right? One is to make sure you're experiencing them, which is, again, really counterintuitive. Right. We when we are feeling frustrated or sad or lonely or bored or whatever, we just want to avoid that emotion. We want to run away from it as quickly as possible. But the research shows that that's not a great strategy. In fact, one study by the Stanford professor James Gross and his colleagues finds that if you're suppressing your emotions, you're causing your body cardiac stress and you're actually messing with your own cognition. You actually think worse when you're suppressing your own emotions. And so we got to find ways to sort of deal with them. But, you know, you can kind of allow those bad emotions to be there, you know, hang out with them. It's it's it's a technique that's often called urge surfing, where you just kind of hang out with something when you're feeling kind of a little lonely or when you're feeling frustrated or sad. Notice how it feels in your body and then kind of watch that wave go away and you can then kind of nurture yourself afterwards to do something nice to yourself, given that you went through that emotion. And so, you know, one thing we have to realize is that when times are sucking, running away from them isn't the best move. You kind of want to be there and allow emotions to take their course. But another way to get through tough times is really with social support. Again, every available study of happy people suggests that they're just really social. And there's evidence suggesting that even when you're going through physical pain, that physical pain will feel less painful if you have social support. You know, if someone's literally holding your hand when you have a like an acute stressor, like somebody putting like a hot plate on your arm, basically they do these nasty studies like this where they put people in pain and try to see what makes them feel better. And the research shows that just having social support, having that social connection can make literal pain feel better.

Caroline: So what I'm hearing is that those time that I'm having a rough day and I get on the phone with Cristen and I just start venting and cry.

Laurie: Yeah, perfect. That's exactly what you need to be doing. Another another counterintuitive thing you can bring in, and this is something I get wrong all the time, even though I know the research is that sometimes when we're having a really crap day, we want to treat ourselves. You know, I'm going to treat myself by myself a really nice dinner or pre covid days of like I am getting a manicure today kind of thing. Right. But research shows that buying stuff for ourselves makes us less happy than doing something nice for other people. So if one of you is having a bad day, the move isn't to get a manicure yourself, it's to treat someone else to the manicure. Or maybe even better, you do the manicure together, treat the other person to the manicure, but, you know, take it together so you can kind of enjoy each other's company when you get it. Doing nice stuff for others, our sense is like that's going to deplete us even more. It's not going to feel good. But the research really shows that, like doing for others can make you happier than doing for yourself.

Cristen: So I have to ask then, as a as someone with tendencies towards social anxiety. What does the research say in terms of reckoning with social anxiety to get to that necessary social connection for happiness?

Laurie: Yeah, I mean, this is a tough one and it's actually one that the researchers try to track. Right, because this is a lot of people's reaction to this work on social connection, which is like, OK, yeah, for some people. But me, I actually really do need the like plop down with Netflix all by myself. You know, one study that looked at this, which again kind of pre-covid days. Right. They had subjects who were on a train commuting to work and they went up to subjects and said, I want you to do one of three things on this train to work. I either I want you to make a social connection with somebody. You have to walk up to a stranger and really try to get to know them really closely. Or I want you to enjoy your solitude on this train ride. Whatever you do, don't talk to anyone or, you know, nerdy scientists like just do whatever you normally do. That's the control condition. And they looked at how happy people were afterwards. And so most people predict that the connection condition is going to feel really strange. Right. You're just this weirdo walking up to people on the train, talking to them. Like what? Like that is not going to feel good. But what happens is just the opposite. It's the solitude condition that feels worse. And the people who really make the connection feel better. And what I love about that study is they also took personality variables. So they were asking people, you know, are you a self-reported introvert? Do you not like talking, talking to people? Do you kind of feel that social anxiety? Do you really predict that this is going to be bad? And what they found is that even people who self-reported being introverts still got the happiness benefit from connecting with others. And so one of the things I think is is happening in the context of people who feel the social anxieties, like our predictions are wrong. Right. Our prediction is like the Netflix is going to feel amazing, but in practice, maybe connecting with other people would feel better. And again, it's connecting with other people in a particular way. I'm not saying if you feel socially anxious, go to some huge party like, you know, be the go to like, you know, I don't know, clubbing or something. I'm saying like connect with a friend, call your best friend and talk with them. Right. You know or like do a zoom yoga where you just around another human right. It's not necessarily that you have to kind of be the life of the party. It's that you have to find a way to connect with real people you care about in your life.

Cristen: Oh Caroline I’m so glad to hear that we don’t HAVE to go clubbing.

Caroline: Honestly, I was so relieved as well, you know when Laurie’s right, she’s right, we don’t have to do it.

Cristen: We’re gonna take a quick break. When we come back, we learn how gender plays into our expectations of happiness

[Stinger]

Caroline: We’re back with Yale psychology professor Dr. Laurie Santos.

Cristen: Have you noticed particular gender differences in terms of expectations around happiness, what happiness looks like, things like that?

Laurie: Yeah, there's not there's not so many gender differences in terms of people's predictions of happiness or things like that, or if there are gender differences, they're really what we call overlapping bell curves like, yeah, on average, men and women might differ, but if I had any one person's score, I couldn't tell if they were like a man or a woman or something like that. What I will say is that, you know, in talking to women, I think there are a lot of these misconceptions, even though this is not like scientific. This is my anecdotal evidence. My sense is that women fall prey to some of these misconceptions about happiness much more often. I think the worst one is this idea of the importance of being busy. You know we think we have to be fully scheduled and onto the next thing and chasing every accolade and busy, busy, busy. I mean, part of this is the structure of the way we live, but part of it is how we interact with those structures. You know we kind of put that on ourselves. What the research really shows that what leads to happiness is the opposite of feeling time famished all the time. It's really having what social scientists call time affluence where you feel like you could just do stuff. It's not the objective amount of free time you have. It's just the sense that you have some free time. And again, I know so many working women in my life who are feeling time famished all the time.

Cristen: Time affluence might be my new favorite term.

Laurie: Well, I'll tell you another one, which is which is close to time affluence. But it's my new favorite term, which is one of the reasons we don't feel time affluent, is that we tend not to use what's called our time confetti. So what's what's what's a crazy finding in the field is that we are we feel time famished more than ever. But if you look objectively at the amount of free time people have, and this includes men and women, what you find is that people have more free time now than they did five or 10 years ago. And this is sort of pre covid not like during the pandemic, like we're actually getting more free time, like as time continues, not less. The problem is that the free time we have is broken up into these really stupid chunks. Right. It's, you know, five minutes before that Zoom meeting or ten minutes when your toddler falls asleep a little bit early. We don't think those are big time periods, so we tend not to use them very well. You know, I'll check my email or pop on Twitter or something, but you can use those well, and the research shows if you use your time, confetti better. Those are those like little five and ten minutes here and there. If you use that time confetti better than you can actually feel a little bit happier. So use it for something that's really going to invigorate you rather than deplete you.

Caroline: This is literally something I've been talking about in therapy. Of like why why do I struggle so much to use that time better - not to be like a capitalist hustle machine type of thing, but like I I I would love to take advantage of that time to do things that do make me happy, whether it's making a quick phone call, working on a hobby or something like that. But I often feel so just like strapped of like, I don't know what to do. I have some free time, but I'm going to just worry about like my next meeting or my next task.

Laurie: Yeah, or might you just get anxious right.

Caroline: Yeah

Laurie: In fact, you know, I'll just use myself as an example. I had my my labs lab meeting right before this and we were discussing some paper and we just kind of finished early and we had like 14 minutes before I started this podcast and I was like, OK, I have 14 minutes. And my instant reaction was like, now I'm anxious. What am I going to do in these 14 minutes? Should I check my email? And like, you know, should I look at my calendar and worry about this other thing. But but now that I kind of learned more about this work on time confetti, I've done something that was a fantastic suggestion by researcher Ashley Willens. She has this awesome book out called Time Smart. You should totally have her on Unladylike because she's amazing, but she recommends making a time confetti wish list or a time confetti to-do list. Like you got your normal life to do list and you find your time, you find your five minutes, you're like, oh, what am I supposed to do? And I had that because I follow Ashley's work. And I realized in my like, you know, 12 minutes before this interview, I'm like, oh, on my time confetti to do list is like text a friend to set up a time to like meet up together, you know, to do some yoga. And it's like you know do three minutes of deep breath. Right. It sounds stupid, but put me in a better mood for this, for this podcast interview. And so time confetti to do lists is really useful because then when you get it, you're like, oh yeah, I have my to do list. I can figure out what I'm supposed to do. And maybe that's a small piece of a bigger hobby. You know, maybe you're learning Italian, and you hop on Duolingo or maybe you're trying to increase your gratitude practice or maybe you do a quick three-minute meditation. All of those things are things that will ultimately get you closer to feeling happier than like frantically trying to squeeze in half an email during that little piece of time confetti.

Caroline: That is so smart. It's like you study this.

Cristen: Oh, you did mention a few minutes ago, though, when we were talking about the gender of it all, that at least anecdotally, you noticed that women tend to maybe fall I forget the way that you put it, but women tend to maybe get more hung up on the expectations around happiness. And I was wondering why why you think that might be.

Laurie: Yeah, I mean, I think part of it is a lot of you know the the structure of the things we do right now, you know, I think more so than men, women feel a lot of pressure to be the perfect moms and the perfect parents. I think this is especially true during the pandemic where a lot of moms are dealing with like home schooling, their kids and stuff like that. But then there's also the pressure to be creating your brand and be the perfect employee and do a million things. And so I think, you know, society these days heap's a ton of expectations on women, and it doesn't teach us to, like, deal with those expectations with a certain amount of grace. And this is another kind of mis prediction that a lot of us make, I think a lot of women make, which is that if we want to get ahead in life, we have to constantly be beating ourselves with the stick. Right? No carrots, just sticks like torture yourself, really push yourself to your brink. And the research shows that that's a recipe for bad performance. That's a recipe for doing badly. We'd do much better in life and even perform better at work, as parents, whatever, if we gave ourselves a little bit more self-compassion, you know, the simple act of kind of being mindful of where you're at, recognizing that you are a human and part of your common humanity is to not be perfect all the time and to kind of give yourself a little bit of kindness and grace, you know, the same kindness you would get from your best friend when you call them and tell them you're burning out, they wouldn't be like, well, push yourself harder. You know, they'd be like, take a break, dude. I'm like, let's go for that manicure. Whatever you need to kind of do that for yourself. And the research shows that people who give themselves this level of self-compassion, far from performing worse, they're able to overcome tough challenges. They're able to pick themselves up back when they fail at something at work. They procrastinate less, they eat healthier. You know, and this is there's this idea that kind of being nice to yourself is weak. But all the research shows that being nice to yourself is really strong. Even if you look at, for example, soldiers coming back from Afghanistan, the ones that are more self-compassionate, again, not something we associate with like bravado soldiers kind of thing, but the ones who are more self-compassionate actually have less PTSD. So it's really a recipe for protecting your performance, protecting your mental health. And it kind of feels nicer than beating yourself up all the time. But, you know, it's not something that comes naturally to a lot of us.

Caroline: So. There's the old saying, of course, that money can't buy happiness, but there's also the idea that, well, if I have enough money, I can buy health insurance and go to the doctor. You know, I can buy groceries and cook myself healthy meals. And these things are a part of, I would think, a greater sense of like well-being, not just like, am I happy in the moment. So I'm curious about your thoughts on that idea of the nuances around money buying happiness.

Laurie: Yeah, yeah, this is something that folks have studied a lot and and you're totally on to something, right? Money can buy happiness if you don't have any money. Right. You know, if you're living below the poverty line, if you don't have health insurance, you can't put food on the table. If you can't put a roof over your head, then definitely getting more money is going to help. However, the increase in happiness that comes with an increase in money stops and it stops kind of at the point where you get all of those things, you know, reasonable middle class existence in one study, granted was back in 2009, so the numbers might be off a little bit. But one study from 2009 suggested that in the US at around seventy five thousand dollars, once you're earning that, earning more doesn't help. And like really earning more doesn't help. Even if you quadruple your salary, you're not going to get one boost of wellbeing in terms of your positive emotions, in terms of reducing your stress. You just won't. And so, I mean, I think it's it's important, right? Because we can I see, like, money can't buy happiness, but yeah, that is only if you're at a certain level of privilege. And we have to acknowledge that a lot of people are not at that level of privilege and we should fight to make sure they get there. But once you're kind of like, you know, doing the normal middle class thing, more money isn't going to make you happy. You know, that extra addition on your house, isn’t going to make you happy. The extra ability to purchase material stuff beyond your material needs isn't going to make you happy. And that's not something we expect. That's that's a notion that's hard to get rid of.

Cristen: Well, as an avid watcher of the Real Housewives franchise, that anecdotal evidence definitely aligns with that

Laurie: it's it's like bad, bad 90's music, like mo money, mo problems. BIG got it right.

Cristen: Caroline, I LOVE the concept of time confetti! And speaking of which, it is time to take a quick break.

Caroline: When we come back, Laurie answers listener questions about toxic positivity and emerging from the pandemic with our happiness intact.

[Stinger]

Cristen: We’re back with host of the Happiness Lab podcast, Dr. Laurie Santos

Caroline: So Laurie, we have some listener questions for you. But first, we actually have a question that’s coming from inside the house, it is from an Unladylike team member, our editor, Gianna. She wants to know about life after covid. So, Gianna writes, “I'm looking for any tips you have on cultivating happiness as we reemerge from COVID. As vaccines roll out and more of a quote unquote, regular life resumes. I'm definitely feeling relieved, yes. But also a lot of new pressure. Pressure to be happy and energized and to joyfully pack my schedule. Truthfully, I have mixed feelings. I'm not looking forward to the return of FOMO or my long commute, for example, but I genuinely do want to cultivate more happiness as normal life resumes. Any suggestions?”

Laurie: Yeah, well, one suggestion is to return to normal life very intentionally. Like, I really wish that there would be this moment when there is like a director's clap, you know, and the director brings in like click like normal life back. You know, probably the government, the CDC, you know, no one's going to do that for us. But I think we can do it a little bit for ourselves. And the reason I think we need to be intentional about deciding like, OK, this is post covid for me is in part because the research really shows that these temporal boundaries in life are moments where we can start new habits more easily. We're more motivated to start these new habits. It's a it's a bias called the fresh start effect, which Katie Milkman at the University of Wharton has studied a lot. And so, like, you had a big birthday boundary, like when you turned 30 or something like that, or when you move to a new place or you start a new job, it's just easier to start new habits. Whether those new habits are like some new fitness thing or like more self-compassion, like I'm not going to feel FOMO, I'm not going to pack my calendar. I'm going to decide and say no to things. I'm going to subtract. Right. All these new kinds of behaviors become easier at a new moment. And so I think one of the exciting things about this kind of post pandemic time is that we're all going to be ready for a change. We're all going to be more motivated for a change which makes changes stick better. So you got to pick which changes you want to bring in. And so I love what this the person who asked this question is thinking, right. Which is like you don't want to go back to the FOMO. You don't want to go back to the packed schedule in a certain way. And I think this can be a time where you very explicitly pick what you want to include and what you don't want to include. And remember that subtracting, which is something we don't often do, can be really important. Right. You don't want to go back to packing your schedule in the same way, in part because of the time affluence stuff we were talking about earlier. Another thing I think is really powerful about the return to kind of post-covid life is I'm really hopeful that will naturally get a little bit of a happiness boost in the sense that, you know, there is so much stuff before covid that when the pandemic hit, I realized I was absolutely taking for granted. You know, like the ability to, like, see my mom and just give her a hug without worrying that I'm going to make her sick. Right now, the ability to see my colleagues at work to go to the grocery store without a mask on, to go to my favorite coffee shop and just get a latte and hang out there and work in the coffee shop without fear. Like, we can't do that in the same way right now. But and what that has made me realize is like how much I was taking it for granted before. When I walked into my old coffee shop, I wasn't joyous at the idea of getting a latte. I didn't realize how fragile it was. But now that I think we've seen that fragility, we can go back to those activities with a lot more gratitude. And I'm hopeful that because we've seen how just how fragile and how long these things can be fragile, we're going to have a greater sense of gratitude towards stuff that was really important and joyful in our lives. We weren't really we weren't really realizing that before. I'm hopeful that we can kind of infuse a lot of gratitude into all these things that seem simple before, but feel really important now.

Cristen: So next, we have actually a few questions within a question from a listener named Rebekah about not wanting to be happy all the time, particularly at work. So Rebekah writes, “I was hired at a startup in the role of director of marketing and development. My job was to help the company raise capital, improve their finances, launch a brand and in short term, get them into shape. What actually happened was an organization slash leadership team that was not ready to hear anything but good news. We're talking about a director who didn't always make payroll, committing to partnerships we couldn't fulfill and spending money we didn't have. When I advised some adjustments, I was berated for being negative, for not inspiring the team, manifesting negativity, etc. It was a combination of insulting to my contributions, gaslighting me and the thinking that I'm the team member affecting morale and ultimately being fired for not motivating the team at a quarterly meeting. So happiness is not constant, so why do we feel obligated to pretend it is?” That's her first question. We'll start there.

Laurie: Yeah, well, first off, that situation sounds like it sucks. Maybe it was like a good thing to get fired from this company. Sounds pretty toxic, right? Yeah. I mean, I think we get happiness wrong again. This is another spot where we have a misconception. We think happiness is like smiling like a stupid, happy emoji all the time. We think that's what leads to life satisfaction. But other research shows at life satisfaction comes from a life well lived and a life well lived, is going to have some negativity. It's going to have recognizing that negativity, navigating it, giving yourself some self-compassion so you can do something different next time. Right. I think we think happiness is positive emotion all the time. But there are other components too. A full happy life requires some negative emotion. It requires recognizing challenges. It requires kind of getting away from the sort of positive manifestation BS stuff, to be honest. And there's I have a whole podcast episode about how a lot of that form of positivity is kind of wrong and that the research shows that if you're only kind of thinking positive all the time that you're going to perform worse, you're not going to meet your goals is clearly that to kind of meet your goals, you have to infuse a little bit of negative thinking, but negative thinking in a particular way where you recognize what a goal is, how far you are from it, and think realistically about the obstacles, because if you don't notice obstacles, you kind of can't get around them. So, yeah, I think we get happiness. We have lots of aspects of happiness wrong. But this is one and I think this can sometimes seep in a yucky ways into corporate culture where everybody's is like no positively manifest, blah, blah, blah. And that means you're like completely missing obstacles that you need to pay attention to to improve. So so I doubt this startup is going to do well on down the line so she can kind of take heart in. That is my guess.

Caroline: Do you have any tips for balancing positivity with being realistic at work?

Laurie: Yeah, there's there's one technique that I teach in my course. And as I said, we have this whole episode of my podcast, The Happiness Lab, about it, which is a technique that it's an acronym. There's all these like techniques that are acronyms in our field. So bear with us. But it's an acronym called WOOP, which is an acronym for Wish, Outcome, Obstacles and Plan. And so the idea is like whenever you're kind of thinking about something, you have these wishes, you know, like like think about post pandemic, like like I wish I had balanced my post pandemic life. Right. You kind of come up with the what you want, what the wish is, and then you think of the outcome. Right. Which is like, oh my God, if I had balance in my post pandemic, life would be so great. I would be so chill. It'd be this like Zen mama would be fantastic. Right. But then, you know, the problem with the positivity manifesting is you stop there like that would be great. But like there are obstacles, you know, to this and other plans. Right. Like like like what is the obstacle to being, you know, so Zen in your life is like, oh, is it the other question? The other person to ask the question was asking, like, you know, I'm going to get invited to all this stuff, like I'm going to have the FOMO again and like and then once you come up with those different obstacles, you come up with a plan to deal with them. You're like, OK, well, how can I really deal with the fact that, you know, as soon as everybody's vaccinated, I'm going to have a billion plans. Right. Like, how am I going to navigate that? If I get asked to go to this party, then I'm going to do da da da. So you come up with these sort of if then statements that sort of help you get through it. And the reason this is so powerful is that research really shows it like when you've already thought through the obstacles, your brain has already kind of figured out the plan ahead of time. So when that obstacle comes up, it becomes much easier. Functionally, you're giving the rest your brain the same training that like Navy SEALs go through, you know, where they do all these like plans for bad stuff that's going to come up when the bad thing comes up, you know what you're supposed to do. And so it's not so much that you don't want to be positive. It's just you want to think positively. That's the kind of thing that can help you figure out what goals you want in life, what would be good in life. But then you have to ask, like, OK, but what are the obstacles to those goals and how can I plan around those obstacles too.

Caroline: All right, so let's get out of the office and let's get into some wedding planning. Listener Elizabeth writes, “I got married to a wonderful male partner last fall, but the year leading up to the wedding was one of the most miserable years of my life. I think there was a lot of things that led to my suffering, including increased depression and anxiety. But one of the things that made it even worse was everyone from close family to strangers was confused why I was not ecstatic all the time. All anyone wanted to talk about was wedding planning and how excited I supposedly was. Living in another state from family and friends, made planning even more isolating. And I found myself having to carry and care for the emotional weight of others in addition to the usual stresses of a wedding. So I guess my question is, why aren't women allowed to be anything but excited for big, potentially isolating life changes?”

Laurie: Well, this is one of many societal changes that we might need for us improving happiness. I mean, I think part of it is that this is the kind of change that we can help other people with. You know, everyone who's heard this, when you have a friend who's like having the wedding or about to have a baby or just got a new job or any great life thing, give them some space to kind of be a little bit negative about it. I think we forget that, you know, one of the best things we can do for our friends is really to give them space to actually express negativity and to honestly express what's going on you know on campus. You know, all these like like, hey, how's it going? And like, there's only, you know, in the kind of brief interaction, like one thing you say, like great or OK. And I started using this thing with friends of mine and especially my students, like, “Don't lie to me. How's it going?” Like, you know, and like, really, like, I've got five minutes. Let's talk, you know, and that can open up of like, actually, you know how it's really going is X, Y and Z, right? Like we have to cultivate in our local cultures the opportunity not to complain necessarily, but to be honest about the emotions we're going through. We can give that space to others and in doing so, they'll be more likely to do it to us.

Cristen: Yeah, what do you tell folks who finally reach a big achievement, but still feel unhappy. I mean, this is something that I've I've experienced before, and it can create a lot of cognitive dissonance of life. Well, this was the this was the thing my life has been leading up to. And yet I. I don't feel happy at all.

Laurie: Totally. Well, this is this is yet another misconception. We think life is about. We think happiness is about circumstances. So we get to that good circumstance. We get married, you know, for my Yale students, they get into the perfect college. They think it's happily ever, like, done it, happily ever after from that point on. And the research shows two things that are wrong here. One is that when we get good things in life, we're not as happy as we think and that happiness doesn't last as long as we think. One of the examples I give to my Yale students is these days, everybody like films themselves getting into college, you know, like which is like so awful. I don't understand why this is the thing, but whatever. So I show them these videos of kids finding out they get Yale, and they're like, yeah, we've got this is the best. And I was like, OK, how did the like how long did the like, oh, my fucking God last like yesterday. You know, when you're a sophomore, like in the middle of midterms, did you, like, wake up and scream that? Why? You know, you were so happy when it first happened. Like the brain gets used to stuff, you know, and this means that we need to be more realistic when we're making plans. Right. And recognize that, you know, these dreams that we put out there in the world, they're not going to be they're not going to make us as happy as we think. There's no such thing as happily ever after unless you have like ten more minutes to live. But the flip side of that is that sounded very depressing and so I'll mention the flip side.

Cristen: No it's real!

Laurie: Well, the flip side of that is the opposite, you know, because sometimes we're in the opposite. You know, we're not thinking and forecasting, you know, oh, how awesome is it going to be when I get married? We're forecasting like, oh, my God, you know, I just got an awful cancer diagnosis or a friend of mine was in a serious car accident or I just lost my job. We're forecasting that in some cases to be the reverse of happily ever after, like, miserable ever after right? And the research shows that the same pattern holds, but in the opposite direction, which is kind of good. It means that you're not going to be as sad, as miserable as you think. And whatever sadness and misery you feel won't last as long as you think. And in fact, that effect of how badly we miss predict on the negative side is even bigger than the positive side. So, yeah, you kind of assume you're going to be more happy when this awesome thing happens than you are. But we really, really mis predict how miserable we're going to be when a bad thing happens. We're much more resilient than we think. And that's really good news. It means that like we could be taking more risks in life, you know, we could be trying out new things. And if we fail, if we stumble, the bruise we get isn't going to be as bad as we think.

Cristen: Oh, well, thank you so much for taking the time.

Laurie: Yeah, I really appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me on the show.

Cristen: Caroline, I love all of the new tools and acronyms and time confetti tips that Laurie offered us. I know that I'm a lot more conscious of my time confetti. And by that, maybe it's just sort of a practice of staying present a little bit more. I also want to set aside some time, more than time confetti to woop, to plan out my post pandemic woop and like how I want to use the fresh start effect to to my advantage. So, yeah. What about you?

Caroline: So I really, really want to implement that time confetti concept better in my own life. You know, I want to get past the feeling of like, oh no, I have five minutes or 15 minutes. What do I do in this weird time other than pace? Like, I would like to be able to to take a happy chill pill. And I think my next step is to make one of those time confetti to do list that she talks about, so that when I have the spare moments I'm not like pressuring myself to get work done necessarily. But I know that I have, like happy inducing things. I can take care of those moments. And I feel like that will make me feel a little more in control.

Cristen: Absolutely. Well, best of luck with your time confetti.

Caroline: You too.

Cristen: You can find Laurie on Twitter at @lauriesantos. And a new season of her podcast, The Happiness Lab, is out right now! PLUS definitely check out her course, The Science of Well-Being, on Coursera — it’s free! And reminder: It’s Yale’s most popular class EVER.

Caroline: You can find us on instagram, facebook and Twitter @unladylikemedia. You can also support Cristen and me by joining our Patreon; you’ll get weekly ad-free bonus episodes, listener advice and our undying love at patreon.com/unladylikemedia.

Cristen: Nora Ritchie is the senior producer of Unladylike. Gianna Palmer is our story editor. Shruti Marathe transcribes our tape. Our music is by Flamingo Shadow, Amit May Cohen and Sarah Tudzin. Mixing is by Andi Kristins. Sound design and additional music is by Casey Holford and Andi Kristins. Executive producers are Peter Clowney, Daisy Rosario and Unladylike Media.

Caroline: This podcast was created by your hosts, Caroline Ervin

Cristen: And Cristen Conger of Unladylike Media.

Caroline: Next week…

Tanya Selvaratnam: I was stunned and disheartened by how many people I know have had abusive experiences with their intimate partners, and I wondered why haven't we talked with each other about these experiences before? Because I do believe by sharing our stories, we take the shame and the stigma out of them, because the secrecy comes from, you know, the stigma comes from secrecy.

Cristen: Unladylike senior producer, Nora, is bringing us a very important conversation about intimate partner violence with writer and producer Tanya Selvaratnam

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