Serious Simcha: Reflections on Genuine Happiness

We are 50 episodes in and I just want to take a moment and thank all of you who have tuned in thus far, who have offered feedback and words of strength, and of course to express my gratitude to God who has given me the strength and fortitude to continue pushing forward.

We’ve been developing our understanding of the deep significant connection between increased levels of happiness and experiences of awe. Last week we talked about what happens to our “default self” when we have an experience of awe. We highlighted that even though it may initially feel like it’s not a good thing to lose your default self, once we elaborated on the full picture, it became clear that if we don’t at times quite our default self, if our default self is constantly active, then we’re really doing ourselves a significant disservice. Let’s develop this a little bit more today.

Last week I asked you to reflect on the wife of a firefighter who lost her husband on 9/11, and how each night thereafter she sat for weeks on the beach watching the sunset. We mentioned that alongside her deep pain, she also felt deep gratitude. And, in addition to gratitude, as she watched the sun set, she also experienced awe - something we haven’t yet defined, but we know is deeply connected with increased levels of happiness.

Talking about awe is complicated, inherently complicated, because once you start to talk about it, to describe it, to analyze it – in a fundamental way you automatically lose a big part of the experience of it. Think of the initial reaction you have to seeing an overwhelmingly beautiful sunset. You will probably stand and stare, soaking it in. But within moments you might call someone over to come see the beautiful sight, or if you’re alone you might just start noticing the different colors, the patterns…

We’ve been talking about happiness, specifically during difficult times. I have to apologize for repeating myself, but honestly, because of how much pain there is in the world, I just feel so motivated to ensure that the nuance doesn’t get lost – that we understand that pain and happiness are not mutually exclusive constructs; that contrary to the messages we’re bombarded with, we’re far more likely to feel joy only if we also allow ourselves to lean into the harder emotions such as pain and sadness. And as much as I find myself belaboring this point, I continue to read, and watch, and listen to messages which try to talk people out of their pain, out of their sadness.

We spoke last about gratitude, active gratitude, looking for opportunities to express gratitude, and turning inward to touch authentic moments of gratitude even amidst real pain. And just to be clear, these moments of gratitude are not silver linings of the pain. They’re separate, distinct feelings of gratitude for what is, for what we have, irrespective of the pain and loss we’re simultaneously feeling. This authentic gratitude doesn’t start with the phrase “at least” dot dot dot. It’s an entirely separate sentence. And I know it may sound like I’m really belaboring the point, but this is such a nuanced and important distinction. I’d like to talk about gratitude just a little bit more. Since posting the last episode I’ve found myself with a more heightened radar for opportunities to both express gratitude, and to take in expressions of gratitude with deeper impact – to really internalize the feedback.

We’ve been incorporating ideas about Sefirat haOmer into our study of happiness, specifically exploring the topic of mindfulness. Continuing with this theme we’ll talk about mindful relationships.

When we talk about difficult or uncomfortable emotions, we’re talking about feelings like sadness, embarrassment, shame - emotions that trigger us to turn inward. And we’re also talking about emotions like rejection, betrayal, anger – emotions which trigger us to respond outward, towards others. Both categories can induce a reaction which feels like going from 0 to100 in just a few seconds – the difference, is where we direct our response.

A few years ago I decided to take the plunge and I signed up and paid for an 8 week intensive Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction course, an MBSR course. We met at a yoga studio in Montclair every Friday morning for about 3 hours, and the time was filled with a mix of psycho-education (learning about what we were doing, and what we hope to gain), meditative practice (practicing what were learning), and self-reflection (talking about all the feelings and reactions each of us was having). And to be totally honest, the first few sessions felt like punishment.

...so let’s spend just a few minutes explaining what mindfulness is, and what it isn’t. Because in the past few decades, mindfulness has gained tremendous popularity as both a formal practice as well as a way of being, of living. And as with anything that gets mass marketed, some products out there are authentic, and some are knock offs. Mindfulness was initially introduced to the Western world and more specifically to the medical community, by Dr. Jon Kabbat-Zinn, a pain medicine physician at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center.

We’re currently working through a fantastic book by Steve Magness entitled: “Do hard Things”, which guides us in cultivating deep, authentic, and long lasting mental and emotional toughness. And for the next couple of weeks, we’re going to deepen some of what we’re learned, by applying it to the Jewish calendar cycle in which we currently find ourselves. As you know, we’re in week two of the 7 week sefirat haomer count. Let’s take a step back and ask a basic question – What’s the purpose of this count? Is it simply a means to an end – to amp up our excitement as we go from Pesach to Shavuot? Or, is there something of value in the count itself…in each individual day, as we mark it.

We spoke last week about the skill, yes it’s a skill, of being able to sit in discomfort. To tolerate hard feelings – feelings like vulnerability and disappointment, frustration and regret, sadness and embarrassment, and many others that fit into this category of emotions that we would much prefer to suppress, deny, or distract ourselves from. And I think that honing this skill is getting harder and harder for each successive generation.

Last week we concluded with the idea that it takes a lot of inner strength to be able to see reality as it is, especially when you don’t like it and wish it were different. Today, we’ll talk about two critical aspects of nurturing that inner strength.

Think about the following question: When facing a daunting challenge – do you think it would be helpful to downplay the difficulty –to tell yourself that the intimidation you feel is just a façade? That in reality there is no way the challenge is going to be as hard as its being portrayed. Could such an outlook help you be more successful?

Last week we were introduced to Steve Magness, a world-renowned expert on performance. Magness has served as an executive coach in a variety of sectors; but he’s best known in his capacity as a consultant on mental health development for professional sports teams. Guided by Steve’s book, we began talking about mental toughness and its essential role in our being able to successfully navigate adversity. Let’s continue that conversation, keeping in mind that our goal is to figure out how we can all develop the skills of mental toughness, thereby increasing our happiness.

One of the popular topics all over the self-help world of books and podcasts, is pinpointing the factors that help people thrive. Looking at what makes some individuals consistently successful athletes? leaders? parents? executives? What do those individuals have, or do differently than the rest of us? And of course, the question we all want answered, is whether the rest of us can nurture those qualities in ourselves.

Join Dr. Shoshana Poupko for a thought-provoking, authentic, honest, and nuanced discussion of Happiness, drawing from Torah sources, recently published books, articles, podcasts, and stories.

Join Dr. Shoshana Poupko for a thought-provoking, authentic, honest, and nuanced discussion of Happiness, drawing from Torah sources, recently published books, articles, podcasts, and stories.

Join Dr. Shoshana Poupko for a thought-provoking, authentic, honest, and nuanced discussion of Happiness, drawing from Torah sources, recently published books, articles, podcasts, and stories.

Today we’ll advance the conversation by delving into the narratives that lie beneath the stories we tell ourselves; the things which fuel those stories. And as you think personally, please try not to judge yourself, please try not to be too hard on yourself, focus instead as best you can to just be curious.

If we’re going to be totally honest with ourselves, then we need to state explicitly, that we human beings aren’t really wired for this kind of showing up. In fact, our natural tendency is to do whatever it takes to keep us in a state of equilibrium, of equanimity, and this is true in both the physical and emotional realms. We naturally resist anything that creates imbalance or insecurity. And so, if showing up to what we’re feeling triggers any kind of insecurity, our natural tendency will be to push it aside, to bury it, in some way to deny ourselves the opportunity to show up in full.

Dr. Susan David’s four essential components to attaining, and maintaining, emotional agility are: Showing up, Stepping out, Walking your why, and Moving on. These four pillars sound pretty generic and clearly need to be defined, and we’ll do that. But before spend significant time understanding each pillar, let’s try to gain a general understanding of each one.

Our exploration of emotional well-being will begin with the guidance of Dr. Susan David, specifically through her book “Emotional Agility.” Originally from South Africa, Dr. David is a clinical psychologist and also serves on the faculty of Harvard Medical School. She’s written for numerous publications, has a wonderful TED talk called “The gift and power of emotional courage”, and has written a deeply impactful book which will be our guide for the next few weeks.

Contrary to what most of us have been taught, we human beings are much less thinking machines, and we’re much more feeling machines that think. How did we come to believe that it’s good for us to avoid some emotions?

Sonja Lyubomirsky taught us that up 40% of our happiness can be defined by intentional activities that we choose to engage in. And Tal Ben Shahar gave structure to this by delineating 5 areas that we should focus on. Thus far we’ve discussed 4 of these areas, and today we’ll review what we’ve learned. Having unpacked intellectual, relational, spiritual, and physical well-being, it’s important that we pause and take stock. Part of why it’s good to pause specifically here, is because our fifth area - emotional well-being, is going to take us far longer to unpack than the previous four. It’s the area that trips us up most often, the area in which there is so much to learn.

The final element of physical well-being issleep. And we all know the bottom line – we need to get adequate sleep. But what I hope we’ll learn today is that getting enough sleep is a REAL need, that is, if we want to be our best selves, our happiest selves. And I think you’ll agree once you hear how our brain responds to a good night of sleep, vs. an inadequate one.

Growing up, we all learned about the basic food groups and what we should ideally be putting into our body. But how many of us learned about the very real connection between our gut and our brain? Or between our gut and our emotions? Historically, nutrition education and research has focused largely on how the foods we eat affect our physical health. But the new emerging field of nutritional psychiatry, studies how the foods we eat impact our mental health - the way we feel emotionally.

The first step to fulfill our potential for physical wellbeing, is recognizing its inseparable connection to our mind and emotions. Think about the extent that our thoughts and feelings impact our body – how we literally hold our emotions and ruminations in our shoulders, in our jaw, in our stomach. And, the relationship is bidirectional.

Thus far we’ve covered intellectual wellbeing, relational wellbeing, and spiritual wellbeing. The two final areas we need to explore are physical wellbeing and emotional wellbeing. And while I would love to take credit for leaving these two specific topics for last, it was truly fortuitous. It's clear that all 5 areas of wellbeing are connected to one another, but there is a specifically inextricable link between our physical and emotional wellbeing.

Remember that slowing yourself down and paying full attention to whatever you’re doing, are key components in the informal practice of meditation; And it’s this practice which can directly increase spiritual well-being.

Let’s talk about the third area enumerated by Tal Ben Shahar - spiritual well-being. The first thing we need to clarity when talking about spiritual well-being, is the role that religion should or shouldn’t play in this discussion. We’re going to take the approach that while spirituality should be nurtured in religious contexts, it also can be learned and cultivated in day-to-day life.

Continuing our discussion about relational well-being, let’s talk about emotional attunement. It’s in the context of marriage that emotional attunement garners the most attention, but the truth is that emotional attunement is an incredibly powerful influence in friendships as well as in professional interactions.

Continuing our discussion about relational well-being, lets talk about two critical elements: empathy and emotional attunement. The sad truth is that empathy levels continue to decline across the globe, some research pointing to as much as a 40% decrease over the last 30 years. What does this all have to do with relational well-being?

Let’s talk about relational well-being. We mentioned last week that when we devote ourselves to deep learning, we strengthen neural pathways in our brain which then get utilized in many other areas of our life, the most important one being relationships. John Gottman, who is world-renown for his 40 years of breakthrough research on marital stability, talks about how important “deep knowing” is to a thriving relationship. He writes that couples tend to be curious about one another in their early courtship. But as life evolves, familiarity and routine, promote an illusion that we pretty much know most, if not all there is to know about our significant other.

Let’s continue our discussion about the potential for intellectual pursuits to increase our happiness. Remember that intellectual pursuits can and really should include learning new things, as well as deepening the things with which we’re already familiar. Today let’s talk about this latter pursuit, what we’ll call Deep Learning.

We mentioned last that Tal Ben Shahar in his book “Happier” lists five categories, five areas, that contribute to the 40% category, the category that gives us some element of control to impact our happiness. Those five areas again are: Spiritual, physical, intellectual, relational, and emotional well-being. And as I mentioned, at first blush it sounds like the five areas cover the totality of our life – every aspect: just do these 5 all-inclusive areas well, and yes, you’ll be happier. (pause) But what Tal Ben Shahar helps us understand, is that for most of us, we don’t need a total life overhaul and that’s not at all what he intends to convey. Instead, what we’ll learn is that there are realistic, manageable, attainable skills in each of these categories which we can learn and implement, that can truly help us increase our happiness.

Today we’ll begin talking about the 40% category of what we can do, deliberate activities, to raise our level of happiness in a real and consistent way. Let’s being with talking about expectations, meaning, if I start doing what the research tells me to do, what can I realistically hope to feel, and to see change and evolve in my life.

We are almost ready to talk about the 40% category – deliberate activities. Remember that this is the category that offers us the best chance of increasing feelings of happiness. And please bear with me as I continue to stress that increasing happiness is a personal choice that needs to be made by each individual, based on his or her circumstances, needs, and desires. It can’t be something imposed by others, or a social expectation or pressure, or the litmus test of whether you’re a mentally healthy person. What I’ve encountered in a therapeutic context are statements like “things really are good in my life and I’m so grateful for so much, so I don’t get why I don’t feel in sync with this reality. I feel a heaviness or a blahness that weighs on me.” For statements like these – for these individuals, the first thing we’ll do is some investigating to make sure that their assessment of reality is accurate. And if it is, then we dive into the advice that we will learn about in the 40% category.

We learned about the impact that genetics have on our happiness set point - recall that it was 50% - and we talked about how its human nature to return to that set point even after experiencing significant positive or negative life changes. This is best understood by the concept of hedonic adaptation, which we explained briefly last time. Today we’ll expand on hedonic adaptation to better understand the impact that circumstances have on our happiness level. Remember that circumstances and deliberate activities were the other two significant factors found by Sonja Lubomirsky in her research.

We spoke last about genetics accounting for 50% of our happiness set point, and I’m curious if that percentage is in line with your thinking; or were you under the impression that genetics would play a bigger role, or perhaps a smaller one. As we mentioned, genetics is accompanied by circumstances and deliberate activities, as the three factors that influence a person’s chronic happiness level. Before we define and understand these latter two factors, let’s talk a little bit more about the role that genetics play.

With toxic positivity remaining on our radar, let’s now move to talking about the ways through which we can increase and sustain, our happiness level. There are two highly notable individuals who are going to start us off and guide us on this next step in our learning. The first is Tal Ben Shahar. The second person we’re going to learn so much from is Sonja Lyubomirsky.

Last week I shared with you that part of me feels anxious spending so much time on toxic positivity. And, then there are the other pieces which know the path to authentic long term happiness, has to travel this road. We have to gain a sophisticated understanding of the things which get in the way, and toxic positivity is a big one. So picking up from the question I left unanswered last time, what are the negative side effects of toxic positivity?

We talked last about toxic positivity, and I encouraged you notice the thoughts and feelings that come up when you reflect on this concept - and I did the same. I thought about my nature of being a realist, and whether in a world often fixated on feeling good, my perspective just brings people down and detracts from their desire to feel happy. And I sat for a while just pondering that, and to be perfectly honest, it wasn’t the most comfortable space to sit in. (Pause) But if there’s one thing I’ve learned through lots of therapy it’s that growth happens in precisely those spaces – the uncomfortable ones. And as I grappled within myself, I remembered something I learned a while back, which is: that being perpetually positive isn’t the same thing as being hopeful or optimistic.

We talked last recording about the directive to amp up our joy in the month of adar. And we talked about how this implies that we all have a baseline of happiness to be able to do this. We also asked whether a person can be commanded to feel a certain way. And if so, are those feelings really authentic? These questions got me thinking about something else: Is “mishenichnas Adar Marbim B’simcha” in a sense our version, the Jewish version of the platitudes and cliches we see all over about being happy.

It’s convenient although honestly it really wasn’t planned, to begin studying happiness in the month of Adar because of the idea בשמחה משנכנס אדר מרבים when the month of Adar comes we should increase our joy. This statement may seem straightforward and simple, but if you give it some attention it really lends itself to a lot of challenging thoughts.