30: Myths of Happiness with Dr. Gillian Mandich

Listen to this episode of Align and Expand on the player above, or find it on Apple or Spotify.

Have you ever caught yourself saying “I will be happy when….” 

Did you know that happiness is more than a mindset and that it’s actually something you can cultivate more of intentionally?!

I went 95% of my life thinking that happiness was based on what was happening on the outside of me and that is why I am so excited to bring this conversation to you today.

I have invited Dr. Gillian Mandich on the show today to talk to us about myths of happiness and what we can do to create more of it in our lives starting right now. Gillian is a happiness researcher that has been seen on shows such as CBC, The Social, The Morning Show, and even TEDx. Her message is powerful and you will leave this conversation with tangible takeaways for your everyday life. 

What else you can expect to hear:

• How to increase happiness and sustain it over time
• How we impact our happiness, not our external circumstances
• 3 common myths of happiness you may have fallen victim to
• Resiliency
• How happiness increases health

And so much more!

Friends, I know you are going to love this episode. If you don’t forget to share it with a friend so they too can cultivate happiness more often!

>>If you want an exclusive meditation then be sure to leave an iTunes review for the Align and Expand podcast. Find the purple podcast app>click write a review> Then screenshot it and send it to my DM @loren.runion on IG or email it to me hello@lorenrunion.com

More Happiness Support

• Everyone Wants Happiness: 25 Inspirational Happiness Quotes

Transcript of the episode

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Dr. Gillian Mandich 0:00
Happiness is not something we get one day. It’s not it’s about reframing our mindset. It’s about changing the lens, that we look at things as instead of looking externally to something that may happen one day or may not, and instead to look around and figure out, okay, what’s going on in my life right now that is good or that I can appreciate.

Loren Runion 0:23
You’re listening to the Align and expand podcast. Join your host, Loren Runion, in conversations that will inspire you to intentionally create a life you love.

Loren Runion 0:34
Hello, welcome to Episode 30 of the Align and expand podcast. I’m your host, Loren Runion, and I’m so happy to have you here today. To hear this freaking on fire conversation with Dr. Gillian Mandich. I had the honor of talking with Gillian and she was incredible to speak to. And I just want to tell you a little bit about her background before we dive into the episode and what you can expect to hear on this episode today. So Jillian is the founder of the International happiness Institute of Health Science Research. She is a research associate at the world database of happiness, co lead investigator of the Canadian happiness that work study, and a part of the meant to prevent research team at sickkids. She is also a top rated keynote and TEDx speaker and has been seen on shows such as the social the morning show and CBC. I mean, just hearing that you can hear just from her bio, how thankful I am to have her part of our show. And today you will hear Dr. Mandich talk about happiness, including the myths of happiness, several happiness exercises that you’re going to be able to do and then follow along after you get done with the show, to practice cultivating awareness on how happy you are or how you’d like to start creating more happiness in your life, as well as conversations on resiliency. And I just honestly can’t wait for you to hear this conversation. I loved every piece of it. And it really means a lot to me to be able to participate in a conversation like this with Dr. Mandela, because, for me, I went 39 years I’m 40 and I went 39 years of my entire life without realizing you create your own happiness and without realizing that it’s a mindset and without realizing that happiness is not based off of your external circumstances. And I hope that you love this conversation. I hope that it inspires you to start creating change. I hope it inspires you to start seeking happiness from the inside and learning how to cultivate that for yourself. If you love the episode, as always tagged me in on Instagram at Loren Runion, I would love to see how much you loved it. And if you’re an iTunes listener, and you love this episode, don’t forget, I always appreciate when you take the time to leave a review. Let’s get on with the show.

Loren Runion 2:59
Dr. Gillian Mandich welcome to the show.

Dr. Gillian Mandich 3:02
Hi, I’m so happy to be here with you.

Loren Runion 3:05
I’m so happy. I know.

Dr. Gillian Mandich 3:07
I feel like we’ve been having a lot of conversations we’ve never met. So I’m really excited to see what we talk about today.

Loren Runion 3:12
Yeah, it’s gonna be really, it’s gonna flow really well. And I was like thinking about how funny it is to say that you’re happy when we’re talking about a conversation about happiness? Do you ever think about that every time. You’re like, I’m happy, I’m happy to be here. Let’s talk about happiness.

Dr. Gillian Mandich 3:26
It took me a while. And then one day, I’m like, Oh my gosh, I’m talking about happiness. I’m saying I’m happy to be here. I’m like, Well, I guess I am happy to be here.

Loren Runion 3:32
I felt like I needed to come up with a better word. But like, there isn’t one I am very happy. Well, I appreciate you taking time out of your schedule and life to come and share your wisdom and your expertise with my audience. I know they’re gonna love it. And I really feel like because of my experience with happiness, and it taking so long for me to realize what happiness really is, or just have like a very general working towards, you know, continuous happiness or not continuous. But you know what I mean, I think that, you know, we have so much potential to like change a lot of lives, because if it took me 39 years, I know, I’m not the only person out there who’s not familiar with the concept of creating your own happiness. So I’m so excited to talk about this today.

Dr. Gillian Mandich 4:16
Oh, yeah, me too. You know, the amount of times when you know, when you meet somebody, and they’re like, What’s your job? And I say, Oh, I’m a happiness researcher. And then like, okay, kind of like a blank stare. And if I had like a thought bubble, you know, it’s like cartoon bubbles. Regular wondering, like, what is that? Is that a job? Can somebody study happiness?

Loren Runion 4:32
Am I happy?

Dr. Gillian Mandich 4:38
So I mean, even the field of happiness research is relatively new compared to a lot like the first ever peer reviewed journal article on happiness is published in 1980, which from like, an academic perspective, is a very new field. So it’s a very exciting place to be it’s such it’s really, the amount of work in it is just like exponentially growing, which I think is so exciting. But we’re learning a lot. And the fact that we’ve been having these discussions, to me shows where people are and what they want to know and how they want to learn and what what is our priority. I think one of the things that pandemic has done is it’s really forced us to shift and to look at what’s truly important in my life, what are the things that when we strip away all the noise, all of that, what really matters. And so, I’m noticing more and more and more interest in this topic right now. Because we’re starting to recognize that at the end of the day, we get one shot at life, and we get one experience. And so how do we make it the best ever? And, you know, happiness really is sort of that secret sauce that, that gives us that joy, as opposed to just sort of robotically going through our day. And so how do we cultivate more of that? Is the question that I’m always researching,

Loren Runion 5:45
Right. And so what I think is really gonna be fun about our conversation is I think I must learn backwards, or I like to know what it isn’t or what I’m doing wrong before I can know what I’m doing, right. So I think it’ll be really exciting for us to talk about the myths of happiness. So that kind of bells can kind of like ring and people’s like, oh, maybe that’s me, and then go into what happiness is. But before we do that, I know you touched a little bit on being a happiness researcher, can you tell me, us a little bit more about you and your path? And I love to hear, and I know, I know yours did, I’d love to hear the twists and the little like serendipitous moments of like, I was on this path, and then something happened. And now I’m on a new path. So if you could just share with us your story.

Dr. Gillian Mandich 6:27
Yeah, absolutely. You know, I definitely sort of appreciate that too. And for me, my path is really interesting, because when I was doing my master’s degree, so I did an undergraduate degree in health science, and I wanted to go to medical school. And after I graduated, I wanted to get some real work experience. So I decided to defer for a year and to work. And I just applied to every job with the word health in the title, because I just wanted some experience. And I ended up getting a job in public health at a local health unit. And I was a research assistant. So I was helping professors and researchers do their research. And then I realized I loved that. And so I thought, instead of going to medical school, why don’t I go back and do a master’s degree and learn more about how to do research. And so when I was working in public health, I was studying childhood obesity and Family Health and diabetes research. And so I did my master’s degree looking, studying childhood obesity, went into my PhD, we did two years of my PhD studying childhood obesity. And then I kind of had a moment you know, we have those like moments in our life, right, where we stop or we pause or reflect. And I was really unsettled because I was using BMI. So body mass index, which is calculated using height and wait, in order to determine if somebody could be in my study. So I thought, though, I mean, I’m sure you know, and you listening know, the number on a scale is not necessarily a good indication of our health, it may be an indicator, and also may not. And so I thought, why am I using weight as a cut off for my research to determine if I can help you. And so I was just kind of like searching. And someone, a woman at Pilates next to me, as like an off comment mentioned that her sister studied happiness. And I was like, you can study happiness. And I went home that night, and I looked into it. And then when I got into the the scientific literature, I started reading things like when you compare happy people to unhappy people, happy people have lower rates of cardiovascular disease, they have stronger immune systems, they heal faster from injury, they’re more productive at work, they’re more creative, they sleep better, they make better nutritional choices, like the list went on, and on and on, which was all of the behaviors that I was sort of going after in terms of promoting health, but from a completely different lens from an inclusive lens where weight is not in the equation. And so I did a one eighty, I switched PhD supervisors, I switch topics I tacked the year on to my study. But it was so great, because I felt so much more aligned. And I am so happy that I switched topics because it’s just been such an amazing experience to learn. Like I didn’t know a lot about happiness, to be honest, before I started studying it like to know that we’re not just born with a happiness level or not. Like when I first discovered that, yes, there’s a piece of our happiness that’s genetic. There’s a piece of environmental, which we can all appreciate, I think in the past year, or whatever it’s been to the pandemic, but we don’t control our environment. But there’s a third section or part of the pie of our happiness that is up to us. That’s our thoughts or actions and our behaviors. And to know that one, we can make change there. And not only we make a change temporarily, we can actually increase our happiness levels and sustain them over time. So I find this to be such an empowering thing because what it tells us is that no matter what we were born with, or not with, no matter where we live, each and every one of us have the capacity to have a major and significant impact on our happiness and on how we feel and the byproduct of that becomes that happiness is correlated with so many other good health outcomes as well. So that’s why I think it’s so exciting to talk about happiness, not just as this sort of like fluffy smiley face feel good mean. But to know that no, it actually goes a lot deeper than that. And to be able to have that conversation to learn more about what impacts that, and how can we do that, that’s where my work really excites me.

Loren Runion 10:25
That’s also interesting. And I, just because you brought it up, and I know it was something I wanted to touch on, you talked about happiness being like this fluffy thing. What do you think about when you hear about people talking about toxic positivity? versus happiness? Do you ever have thoughts on that? Like when you hear those words, because sometimes for me, I hear the word toxic positivity, and maybe I sometimes I’m like, well, what’s wrong with trying to be like, What’s wrong with it? Like, I’m not a like, overly positive person, but I am very into choosing the positive outcome or choosing the positive thought, if I can. So what are your thoughts on like, the toxic positivity versus happiness? Or is it even correlated at all?

Dr. Gillian Mandich 11:05
I’ve actually never been asked that question. And I have thoughts. So this is fun. One of things as a roundabout way to answer this question. One of the things I think that people, you know, when you look on social media, or you sort of see things, you create stories for me, what people say to me all the time is Oh, you study happiness, you must be happy all the time. And I always say, no, I’m not. And I don’t want to be because what we know from the research is that we actually need the full palette of human emotions in order to have healthy psychological functioning, right? We need difficult times sad times. These are emotions that help us grow that teach us resilience, that show us our character that test us. And that comes along with everything else. So when people say to me, oh, you must be happy all the time. I’m like, No, there’s actually research, they call it like the dark side of happiness, where people that kind of put their blinders on and focus on being happy all the time, those people are actually less happy. Because it’s an impossible goal. You can’t be happy all the time. Right?

Loren Runion 12:06
Yeah, right.

Dr. Gillian Mandich 12:07
And so I think it’s kind of like this nuanced a gray area where if you’re not like, say, I was having a bad day, and then I, I’m out in public with my friends, and we’re having lunch or something, if we’re out in public, and, and you just put on a smiley face, and you pretend like everything’s okay. But really inside, you’re not having a good day, that is not healthy. Because you’re you’re bottling up your, you’re not processing your emotions, you and maybe in that setting, it needs to be that. But oftentimes, we’ll sort of put on a mask or facade of how we think people think we should be as opposed to how we actually are. And that’s a slippery slope, because one of the things I always talk about is being happy all the time. It’s not like putting on rose colored glasses, and just pretending like everything’s good and focusing on the good. And ignoring or pushing away or pretending like the bad or the challenging, really difficult things aren’t there. And so that’s kind of like, you know, when you’re having a bad time, and someone’s like, Oh, you know, like, build the bridge and get over it. And you’re like, no, but I’m in it. I’m in it right now. And so, that piece of the conversation, I don’t find this happening very often. But I would say at the same time, one of the silver linings of the pandemic has been that I’m noticing a lot of people having conversations now that are beyond Hi, how are you? I’m good. How are you? Like, we’re starting to get more accustomed to talking about our feelings. And to me, that’s kind of the antidote to toxic positivity, or whatever you want to call it, right? where it’s like, no, we’re talking about how we’re feeling. And it’s real. And so I think that knowing that it’s part of it is feeling however, we’re feeling and contextualizing that with, you know, if you’re going into a work meeting, you probably don’t want to have a breakdown and cry. And at the same time, are we blocking out those emotions? Because one of one of the things I’m very, and I think this comes from my academic side, I’m very deliberate about the words that I use. And one of the words I don’t like to use is calling emotions positive or negative. Because emotions aren’t necessarily positive or negative, right, you can be sad, because something bad has happened. And that’s a very natural response to a sad event. And emotions are signposts, they’re guideposts. They’re showing you how you’re feeling. And so when we can kind of take that filter off of, Oh, I’m feeling happy today that’s good, or, oh, I’m feeling anxious today, that’s bad. When we can kind of rewrite that story or change the narrative around it, then we’re not labeling anything. We’re not judging anything. We’re just letting it be what it is. And I think the key piece of all of this is learning how to feel whatever we’re feeling and not to numb it, or to pretend it’s not there or to surround ourselves with enough noise that we don’t want to feel it whether it be just you know, watching a show on Netflix for a day and just not feeling it. It’s more about tuning into ourselves, and getting have that conversation with ourselves with our feelings and just being real, about what it is that we’re feeling. And then from there it becomes, you know, there’s a difference between I’m having a bad day or a bad week, and I’ve been in a very bad place for a month or something like that, because that’s a totally different conversation, one to have with a professional, trusted healthcare professional, and that day to day ebb and flow. It’s not that it’s good or bad. It just is. And that’s part of the human experience.

Loren Runion 15:27
That’s a really good point because you do hear a lot not to label at least I do not to label the emotions bad. But it is hard to think of it the other way not to label the other emotions good that they just aren’t, you know, it’s not a there’s zero judgment period. On the emotions, just a thing.

Dr. Gillian Mandich 15:46
Yeah. And, and even with happiness, right, like, the way that we so what’s interesting with happiness is that if I was to ask you right now for a definition, or to you listening right now, you know, if I was to ask you, how do you define happiness, we would all come up with a different definition, but we all understand it at the same time. And so part of it too, is, even though happiness is universal, at the same time, it’s as unique as each and every one of us. And it looks differently. And it’s also expressed differently because happiness can be coming out of a yoga class and feeling so blissed out and peaceful, happiness can be like watching your kids play outside and you hear their laughter happiness can be somebody that got a touchdown with the Super Bowl, and they’re doing one of those dances. So even how we feel it and how we show it is different within even one emotion. So it’s kind of this universally different thing, you know,

Loren Runion 16:37
Right. And I think that’s a really good way for us to lead into things that people will think will lead to happiness. So these myths of happiness that you’ve talked about. And, you know, this is how I found you, because I was actually doing more research on the, I’ll be happy when I, you know, syndrome, air quotes, because as an entrepreneur, like I started that, like, I kept setting these goals. And I’m like, Well, I as soon as this, I know, this is what I’m going to be happier, I’ll feel like I have like, had success. And that’s what led me down this path of learning about happiness. And, you know, I’ll be happy when and that’s not, that’s not the way to go about that. Can we talk about the myths of happiness or things that people tend to believe will bring them happiness?

Dr. Gillian Mandich 17:19
For sure. And I think you touched on the biggest one, because it’s so it almost happens without us realizing it. Because it’s so ingrained in our culture, right. Even if you look at marketing and advertising, a lot of things are saying, Get this and they’re showing happy people doing it, it’s so it’s telling us when we get that we’ll be happy. And the reality is that happiness is not a destination. It’s a practice. And one of the big like, when I do a lot of like online webinars and online teaching and stuff like that right now, and we talked, I talked about how happiness is not something we get one day, it’s not it’s about reframing our mindset, it’s about changing the lens, that we look at things as instead of looking externally to something that may happen one day or may not. And instead to look around and figure out, okay, what’s going on in my life right now that is good, or that I can appreciate. It shifts the conversation, because then what it does is it makes happiness not something that’s contingent on a future thing, it makes it real and potentially present. Right now, that’s not to say that there’s always happiness around us. But when we stop that searching, and we can instead tune in and look at and be grateful for or appreciate what we have right now, then the sort of subtext of that is that we are able to start to recognize happiness now and to appreciate what we have. Because if you think about it, even play it out. Like let’s, for example, say somebody was like, my friend is getting ready for a wedding. And so she has this dream way that she wants to be for her wedding. And I said, Okay, well, when you get there, are you going to be happy? And then she’s like, Well, no, that’ll probably want to tone up a little bit. And then I’ll want to do this or that like, because when we get to that place where we think it is that we’re happy, we’re not happy, right? Like it’s a slippery slope into something else, as well. And whatever it is, I think, when we start to attach our happiness to something that’s external, it’s a very dangerous territory, because then we have now put our happiness in the control of someone other than ourselves. And I think one of the key things that I have learned, like if people ask me, like, what are your big aha, that you’ve learned from studying happiness? At the top for me is that happiness starts within and it’s something that we create and cultivate. Yes, there’s a genetic piece. Yes, there’s environmental that I’m talking about the piece that my work focuses on, which is our thoughts, our actions and our behaviors, and who’s responsible for our thoughts, our actions and our behaviors? We are. And so when we can start to think of that, the beautiful part of that is that it changes the conversation because then the question becomes different. It’s not what do I need to be happy in What do I need to think? What do I need to do? How do I need to act in order to be happy, and those things are within our control, because we are responsible for that. And it’s such an empowering way to look at happiness from a different lens. That’s a realistic lens. That’s an attainable lens. And, you know, we were talking earlier about yoga. And I think that you would never go into a yoga class, and then judge yourself for every single pose. When say, one day, you were working all day, and you were at your computer, and maybe your hip flexors are tight, your former fool is not going to be as good as if you were running around with your kids. And, you know, you were moving all day, but you don’t judge and say, oh, today I was really bad, or it was really good. It’s just a yoga practice. They call it a practice for a reason, right? Because it’s a practice. And so I think, when we look at happiness, not as something that we arrive at one day, but instead, as a practice every day, it’s just different. Some days, we practice, and we’re really good. And sometimes we practice and it didn’t go so well. And that’s part of it, because it’s a practice, and then we can bring in that self compassion piece. And we can sort of start to regulate our self talk around it, because we’re not looking at it as something that we’re gonna get. But it’s a practice. And it’s something that we grow. And it’s and it’s different day to day, because we’re different day to day, and things happen differently today. And that’s part of the whole experience.

Loren Runion 21:20
That’s so powerful. I’m almost speechless. And so you know, you said so many things that, like, I teach, and I practice and are so profound, and shifting the experience of your life. Starting with the self talk, you know exactly what you’re saying. And even thinking about it, as I was doing this research for our show, even thinking about happiness is a mindset, like I think of mindset of this, like big happiness goes in there. And I don’t think I ever really, I didn’t put that together, you know, I almost held to happiness over here in this other bubble. And then here’s your mindset. And then if your mind sets, right, it creates happiness. But really my Your happiness is in there is a mindset as well. That you practice every day. Not nothing, you know, it’s not something you master, like meditation or anything else like that.

Dr. Gillian Mandich 22:09
Yeah, we’ll also play it out, right? I think I will be happy when Okay, so you get there, and then what? Right? It’s like, then you want them right? Then things change. And even if we look at the lifespan, like what made you happy when you were 16, versus what made you happy when you were 25 versus 50, or 100, is different. So we’re always having a moving target, too. So it’s not like all of a sudden, you wake up one day, and you’re like, Okay, I’m happy, I’ve reached happiness, I’m here. Happy town, it doesn’t work, because then probably something challenging is gonna come at you soon, or different, or whatever. So even when you play it out, it doesn’t make sense. But I think a lot of times, we go through life, and we don’t actually stop to question what it is that we’re doing and why it is that we’re doing what we do. And how you said, you know, this idea of it being part of the mindset, I think that that’s such a key piece of the of the conversation, because when we look at it the way we think it’s a different thing than something to attain out there. And when we can recognize that, I mean, it’s the same thing, you can go to a party when we used to go to those. And you could have an amazing time you say you had a really good day, you met a couple really nice people, you had great conversation, and then a friend of yours may have not had a great conversation and you you leave the exact same party with a different perspective of the exact same event. And so part of it is up to us in terms of who are we talking to? What are we choosing to focus on? What are we looking at? And all of that comes into the conversation as well, because we are co creators of our experience, right? It’s not just that life happens to us? Yes, life happens. And how we show up what we choose to focus on the mindset that we have the lens that we view the world which is up to us, when we’re conscious and deliberate about it, right, which is a key piece of that. It shifts the conversation and we start to see things through a different lens. And that’s, to me where I think the beauty of talking a lot about happiness and talking about these myths is because a lot of times, we’ve never actually I speak for myself. Before I started studying happiness. I never actually stopped to think about some of those things. Like I thought, you know, I’ll be happy when I finished grad school and then I graduated and then guess what, when I graduate I’m like, okay, what’s next? Right? I never stopped to question my actions in my behavior. So I almost shifted from this. robotics not the right word, but sort of not being very confident. Yes. And when you start to wake up to that, and you start to become a co creator, participator in what you’re doing, and you start to get clear on why it is you’re doing what you’re doing. That’s when you start to be able to really be deliberate, intentional about what you’re doing and how you’re doing it.

Loren Runion 24:47
And it really puts you into an empowered state. You are empowered when you are choosing to say how am I a cause for this? How am I a cause for how I’m feeling? How can I choose to feel differently, like it puts you in a different you know, my When you can think, am I how am I at causes for this? versus Why is this happening to me? Or, you know, why was this party bad or you know, something like that something happening to you versus you being able to co create, like you’re saying,

Dr. Gillian Mandich 25:13
Wxactly, I think this is where the science piece is so important and so timely right now. So I’ll just give you a quick example to illustrate what I’m saying. So when I’m doing sort of I do a lot of webinars right now. And so sometimes what I’ll do is I’ll ask my attendees, I’ll say, Okay, I have two questions for you. So the first question is on a scale of one to 10. Right now we’re one is you’re not happy at all, and 10? Is you’re super happy. How happy are you? And also, you know, you don’t need to tell anybody just answering your head, no judgment, just awareness, like check in, how am I feeling? And then I’ll ask a second question. And I’ll say, okay, say you won $10,000 in the lottery today. And I asked you to take that 10k and spend it in a way to maximize your happiness. And it’s multiple choice. So we do a, go out and buy a new wardrobe. B go on a trip, when it’s safe to travel, see, budget, like about $200 a week a year for self care. So whether you want to buy yourself flowers or order dinner or whatever, or D donate all your money to charity. So out of those four things, wardrobe travel 200 bucks a week for self care, and volunteering, which one do you think would bring you the most happiness? And it’s so interesting, I’ve done this hundreds of times at this point, there’s not a clear winner ever in the answers. There’s mixed. And so then I’ll, I’ll think, Okay, well, you might be wondering, like, why did I ask those questions? And so what we know from the research side of things, when we bring the science into it is that, as humans, we’re actually pretty good at figuring out how happy we are. So that first question on a scale of one to 10, whatever someone’s answer was, if I was to take one of the sort of validated questionnaires that I use in my research, and I would score it and get a number, that number would actually probably be very close to whatever the number that you came up with was. But what’s interesting is that we know from the research that As humans, we are not as good at figuring out what it is that makes us happy. So we often think it’s the bright, shiny moments, it’s the graduations, it’s the weddings, it’s the birthdays, those big things that bring us the most happiness. And part of that is the bias, because we think about things a lot, right? They take up a lot more mental real estate. But the reality is, we live our life every single day. And so what we know from research is that it’s not about focusing on those big shiny moments, it’s about creating small bursts of joy throughout the day. And when I say small, I don’t mean small in terms of impact. I mean, in terms of time, right? So the, the nice walk you have outside, at lunchtime, or the great conversation you have with your friend, those small air quotes, small moments, if you add that up, that actually adds up to a lot more than a one day of a wedding or a birthday or a party. And so we know from the research, and this is where I think it’s such a good part of the conversation to have is that the question is not, where are those big things that are going to make me happy, it’s where can I create small bursts of joy in my day, because when I do that, not only do those add up, but the other beautiful thing is they create what we call in research upward spirals, a positive emotion. So it’s kind of like, you know, when something good happens to you, your mood shifts a little bit, right, you get that burst of oxytocin or of dopamine, but then guess what the next email you send, you might have a smile on your face, or you might be a little nicer in your email, you know, I hope you’re having a great day. So it starts to shift things and to create more of that. And so when we can kind of realize that, even though we think it’s those moments, what we know from research is that, in fact, that’s not accurate. And so we all have biases, as humans, we all do. It’s like, you know, when you get a new car, and then everybody in the road is driving your car, but you’ve never noticed it before. Right? Right. So we have these cognitive biases. As humans, we have to recognize that and realize that even though we think that may be true, when the data indicate otherwise, then it’s time to start to question that. And so that’s where I love this, this blending of happiness, and what we intuitively know. And then we can apply the research to use almost like a compass, right to help navigate us to help us to see our blind spots to help us uncover those things. And by doing that we can not only learn more about ourselves, but we can start to answer the question of what makes us happy. Because that’s the other thing as a happiness researcher. The other question I get all the time is like, okay, Julian, like what’s the magic pill, right? Or like, what’s the one thing like, what do I need to do or buy or get or say, in order to be happy? And the reality is, there’s no magic pill, and it’s up to us. And nobody can tell us what makes us happy, but us. And so part of the work, I guess, the good news, and the bad news is that we have to work to figure it out. And the good news is we get to work to figure it out. And so when we can start to unpack that and we can be guided by research, it can actually help us to steer the boat, the metaphorical boat of our life into happier waters. Yeah,

Loren Runion 29:58
So how does it work? So say for instance, and maybe it just it doesn’t, because you would have to have someone in your research or just who comes across it, and they’re like, Oh, I’m unhappy, and I’m open to being happy. You know, if we have this bias, and we have this, you know, I know, like our subconscious mind is never really going to prove us wrong. So if you have this belief that our environment is what’s causing our unhappiness, how does someone, how do we? Or how do you suggest someone shifts out of that? When it starts with your thoughts? And then your actions and your behaviors? Like how does someone first start, when they already have the belief that maybe it’s their environment? Or maybe it’s the you know, that I’ll be happy when

Dr. Gillian Mandich 30:38
This is a good , you have great questions by the way. So I think and not to minimize that, because there it’s very real for a lot of people that the environment that we’re in is not good. Like, that’s a very real thing. And, and certainly to that toxic positivity earlier, it would not be helpful for me to say, Oh, just focus on your thoughts, your actions, your behaviors, because guess what, if your environment is there, that’s a real thing. At the same time, there’s this term is in research called autonomy, which is essentially this idea. It’s like the research fancy term of, of focusing on what we can control. Because there’s things that happen in our life that we can control. And there’s things that happen in our life that we cannot control. And it’s not about controlling everything, because that’s not possible. What it comes down to is we only have so much mental capabilities in a day. And so we can choose to focus on the things that we can’t control. Or we can choose to focus on the things that we can and not to ignore those other things. But it’s where am I giving more of my attention. Because what we focus on, we tend to notice and we start to focus more on right, we can get into these spirals when we get on a thing. And so sometimes it’s really just about taking a step back. And seeing it for what it is right? We’re not, we’re not pretending like it’s not happening. But at the same time, even with all of those things, like environment being one of them, where a lot of times, we don’t have as much control, we could sit there all day, complain about that, or focus on that and ruminate on that. But that wouldn’t really contribute to anything other than it’s actually probably doing detrimental things to our mental health. So sometimes it’s just about asking different questions, because we ask different questions, we get different answers. And so it could be something along the lines of, you know, where do I have control? So my environment, for example, I don’t like but what food am I eating? Who am I surrounding myself with? Who am I following on social media? What news? Am I consuming? You know, am I moving my body, all of those things are part of the equation too. And so sometimes it’s more just a shift, because the other thing is, happiness is gradual thing, right? We don’t just we’re not happy one day, and we wake up and we are. And so sometimes it’s about moving the needle, like one millimeter for me. So especially when we’re in those difficult times, like, you know, especially going through like a breakup, right? Like, I remember when I went through my divorce, it was like, how am I ever going to be happy again. But that one day, it was just about getting through the day. And then the next day, it was about, Okay, I’m gonna do one thing today to take care of myself. And then that became two things. And it’s a really slow evolution, but we have to start to shift the needle in order for the needle to continue to move. And it’s not about overhauling everything or doing that. But often what you’ll see, and I see this a lot in, when I do like focus groups or interviews with my research participants is that gratitude is actually a really good example of this. So taking time every single day to think about or investigate or write down things you’re grateful for, at the beginning of a study, I’ll actually measure how grateful they are. And then I did one, one study, in particular, with undergraduate students at the University I was at. And so for four weeks, they practice gratitude. And at the end, their gratitude scores, they were statistically significantly happier. But when I asked them, they I said, Do you feel more grateful, and they were like, I don’t know, maybe a little bit. And maybe maybe I noticed that a bit more. But because it happens so slowly. So it’s really about those those subtle shifts that culminate or they accumulate over time, but sometimes we don’t even notice them. It’s like, you know, if you have a friend, and they have a two year old when you see them again, and they’re two and a half, and they’re like a foot taller, right, but the parents don’t really notice because they see them every day. And so it’s sometimes I think, just this idea of really focusing on the tiny shift that we can do today, and letting them build over time and and some days are better than others. And some days, it’s two steps for the next day. It’s one step back, and that’s part of the dance too. And when we focus on what we can control, and we start to do more of those things, it builds over time, and that’s where we start to see the big shifts because happiness is a habit. It’s not a one time thing. And so when we focus on it like a habit, it changes things like I kind of think about, if you want to go to the gym, right? You exercise, you lift weights, and then over time you get stronger You would never walk into the gym and have like the best workout of your life and then leave and be like, okay, Joe, I’ve reached fitness, I’m good, right? We understand that if we want to be fit and healthy, we have to exercise on a regular basis. And so when we think about happiness in the same way where it’s a small things over time, but we have to work the muscle, we have to build the habit, then it becomes a much more manageable, attainable thing, regardless of any of those things that we can’t control. It’s just sort of a different piece of the puzzle.

Loren Runion 35:30
I really like the analogy of the gym, because it’s really similar like you’re saying, you don’t when you’re thinking of, I like to think of the emotions on a scale, like a number line. So you have like this negative all the way to the positive, not meaning negative and positive. Yeah, we’ve got this like middle and you know, you wouldn’t walk into the gym, like you’re saying you would walk into the gym and having been sitting on your couch for six months, and then walk into the gym and like deadlift, you know, 400 pounds, just like if you were have been down or struggling or in, you know, really like resonating with anger for a really long time, and expect to jump all the way up to that happiness scale, or, you know, even just moving to that middle. I’m neutral. I’m neutral today. That’s like huge. A huge thing. And I really like how you touched on on that. And it not having to be from anger to joyful in a day.

Dr. Gillian Mandich 36:22
Yeah, I mean, that’s so overwhelming, right? Like, how do you do that? You can’t and so a lot of times what happens is when when we’re in that mindset, we become paralyzed? Because it’s just like, how do you go from like, a to z? What about all the letters in between? And so that’s where I like this idea of creating small bursts, because that’s something that’s like, Okay, I need to go from A to B today. And then, and then it’s more manageable. Like, I remember, I had to write my PhD dissertation was like, 400 pages like a beast. And I remember the first day I sat down to write it. And I’m like, I don’t even know how to write this thing. Like, where do I start? And so that day, I made a title page, right? And the next period, a table of contents, and then I started filling things in, right, you have to break things down into manageable steps. Exactly. So okay, what’s my next step? Because if you look 10 steps ahead, and you’re looking at where you are right now, that gap can feel so big, that it doesn’t even feel realistic or attainable. And then we can feel discouraged before we even start. And so that shift in things, I think, can be such a powerful way to begin that journey.

Loren Runion 37:27
What’s another really big myth?

Dr. Gillian Mandich 37:30
Whoo, okay, let me think. I think that there’s so many, okay, let’s do this idea of, of, I want to be happy all the time, we kind of touched on it earlier, but I do want to circle back to it. And then I have another one, too. But this idea that we are all that we’re always happy, is something that I really, really, I feel so strongly about. Having people know that that’s not the case and giving people that permission, I think, especially during the pandemic, where we have seen elevated levels of mental health challenges and things like that. giving ourselves permission, if we’re not feeling happy today to not be happy, and to, to not feel like we like him to the airport, like should feel happy. And it gets us into that space. Because I think there’s a lot of work and growth that comes from those times when when we have challenging situations like that’s where resilience comes in. Because basically what happens is we’re going along, and we’re building our happiness muscle, right? We’re going to the gym or metaphorical gym, and we’re exercising our happiest muscle, we’re creating these small bursts of joy, and our happiness is increasing. And then guess what happens a pandemic hits, we have a death in the family, we lose our job, we get divorced, whatever it is, something happens is challenged, and our happiness goes down. And when that happens, resilience is our ability to bounce back. So resilience is okay, this has happened to me, and how am I going to respond? But resilience is bounce back. So that means bouncing back to where we were before. And I think that you I don’t know you that well. But I would be willing to bet and I bet if you’re listening right now the fact that you’re listening to this conversation, we’re not the type of people that just want to bounce back, we want to bounce back and then we want to grow from it, we want to be stronger from it we want to flourish. So flourishing or thriving is once we get back to baseline, how do we create something where we actually are higher or greater than we were before. And so sometimes those really challenging things while we may not want to go through them, we we never wish they happened. At the same time they create these opportunities for us to learn more about ourselves to do some of that introspective work to challenge our shadow side to look for our blind spots. And we can actually become better versions of ourselves through those things. So I think this myth that happiness all the time is good and we should strive for that all the time is one that we need to just throw right out the window. And to sort of, on the other end of that, there’s a book called the top five regrets of the dying. And so a palliative care nurse. She was working with so many people on their deathbed, and she was having conversations. And so she wrote this book about the top five regrets that came up over and over and over again. And one of those types of top five regrets was I wish I had let myself be happier. And when I read that I got goosebumps, because I wish I had let myself be happier. So it wasn’t even a question of like trying, it was that letting ourselves and so if we can learn anything from the deathbed of people that have come before us, it’s that we are going to look back and remember those extra hours that we worked, or those things, we really, were not going to do that. And so when we think about what’s truly important, what really matters in my life, how do I want to feel them, what, what sort of do I want to express or feel in my life, it’s happiness. And so for part of it, and then we can kind of start to shift the conversation. And when we can allow ourselves to embrace the full spectrum of emotions and recognize we’re not supposed to be happy all the time. And we’re sad sometimes. And we have that and we can be resilient through it. It takes the pressure off of ourselves, because I think we’re already so hard on ourselves, like we don’t need to add to that pile with creating more stories around those things. So you know, this idea that I need to be happy all the time. Hi, if you’re listening to the podcast, and like you leave with that nugget, I am so happy because that to make such a key shift. And what I see a lot in research participants is when we have that conversation, it’s often like a domino to start other things, because we’ve now reframed how we’re feeling and what we’re thinking and what our goal is, and what that sort of realistic picture of what it is that we’re feeling is. And when we do that, it’s sort of it starts to shift how we see other things, too. And I think that’s really powerful. Mm hmm.

Loren Runion 41:55
Definitely. I mean, when you said that the, to let you be happy that just really I think, as a mom, I think mom’s probably I shouldn’t not to exclude other people, but I think moms probably really feel that because you take on so much like, stress that doesn’t need to be there, you know, I mean, or for anyone, it doesn’t even have to be a mom, I feel like you know, one of the things that I like to, you know, help people with is like, maybe you don’t need to assign anything to zero meaning to like the situation, okay? The kids are like really crazy right now. But maybe instead of even letting yourself be happy, and but not letting yourself be stress, let’s assign zero meaning to be here in the moment. And see what happens from there, like, let go of the stress and let go of trying to be like a certain way of a mom. And just let’s just be and see where you go from that starting point.

Dr. Gillian Mandich 42:49
I love that. So sort of to add on to that a lot of times I’ll get asked how do I define happiness. And like I said before, we all have different definitions. But when you’re a happiness researcher, one of the things you have to do at the beginning of a study is you have to define your research terms. So I have to define happiness. And so the definition I often use comes from Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky, who’s in California. And she defines happiness as the experience of joy, contentment, and positive well being combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful and worthwhile. And when you unpack that a little bit, so the experience of joy, contentment, and positive well being so with that, combined with a sense of one’s life is good, meaningful and worthwhile. So there’s two pieces, there’s that piece of how you’re feeling right now. And then a greater peace of purpose or meaning. So to unpack that kind of in two separate parts, I think this idea of peace and contentment to recognize that that’s a critical element of happiness is very, very exciting. Because when we can be okay with where we’re at right now, that’s the ultimate source of happiness, because we’re not striving, right, we’re not looking at for it in the future, we’re not looking for it one day, we’re a piece with whatever is right now. And then when you add in that second element of meaning or purpose, that’s a key piece of it, too. Because what we see, I actually did a whole segment on TV once on the social, which is sort of Canada’s version of the view. And we talked about this Japanese concept called EP guy. And it’s sort of this Japanese term for having purpose or meaning and it’s kind of this intersection of what matters and what’s important to you. And what we see a lot is that when people retire, you see a decline often in people in their health quite quickly. And one of the common patterns is that work if work was their sole purpose, or empty nesters, do you see this where they raise their child and they leave and then their life starts to crumble or they start to decline in their health because they don’t have purpose or meaning and whatever that is for us, whether it be you know, supporting our kids, whether that be our work, whether that be our volunteer work, whether that be your hobbies, Finding an opportunity in our life that gives us purpose that gives us meaning, is a really critical piece of our happiness beyond just sort of how we’re feeling in the moment, but having something greater than ourselves that’s contributing to us feeling like we’re a part of a piece of this world is something that I think is a critical element in terms of when we think about what makes us happy.

Loren Runion 45:23
And that definition really kind of answered one of the questions or I think it gave me a little bit more clarity on one of the questions I had for you on really like, if you are working on this, and you’re working on this happiness muscle, you can almost still be quote unquote, happy. By definitely, by that definition, even when something bad is going on. Because you have this overall, like sense of well being and purpose. And you may not feel happy, don’t feel good, right? The second and that’s completely okay. But also, you know, there’s still that higher, like higher thing there,

Dr. Gillian Mandich 46:01
sort of, sort of on those lines. I had a moment had many moments, actually, when I was writing my PhD dissertation. Okay, so it’s this huge, it’s like the biggest thing I’ve ever written in my life. And I was writing in about happiness. And some mornings, I’d be sitting there checking references being like, Am I happy right now? No, I don’t like doing references. I don’t like looking for periods. I don’t like checking my citations. And it’s part of if I want to present my research in a way that these are the things that I have to do. And so even though in that moment, I was bored, or I wanted to do something else, I had this greater thing that no, why I want to share my research. And I want to share my thinking. And if I want to do that, then I have to present it in this container in order to do that. And so even in those moments, where I wasn’t loving what I was doing, I had this greater sense of, or this bigger goal or this greater why of why I was doing what I doing, and I’m better for it. I am. So the sense of accomplishment that I feel that I felt the the feeling of, you know, having something hard and doing it and finishing it, that sense of accomplishment, the sense of pride that I had, because I’d never done anything like that before. All of those things in the end are what I remember I don’t want except for right now. But day to day, I don’t remember, observations, mornings of late or doing grammar editing for hours. But you’re absolutely right. It’s even when you raise a child, right, you have moments where they’re cute, and they’re cuddly, and you have moments where they’re the opposite of. And yet, as a parent who’s committed to raising a child or children, you have that greater sense of why you’re doing what you’re doing. And it allows you to kind of get through those more more challenging times, right? Because you have a greater sense of, of what you’re doing as a parent.

Loren Runion 47:48
Well, is there anything else because I want to be respectful of your time, anything else that you feel is really important for the audience to know about happiness, or that we didn’t get to get a chance to touch on?

Dr. Gillian Mandich 47:58
Whoo. I think one of the things that when I do research and when it was in person, no, it’s not. But when I used to do interviews with people or focus groups, I would ask people, okay, are you as happy as you think you possibly could be? And one of two things would generally happen? Either they would say yes, or sorry for me. They would say no, 100% of the time, they would say no, so no, like everybody think about it. They were like, No, you know what, I could be happier. And then the second question, I would ask, I would say, Okay, well, what makes you happy. And then one of two things would happen either like, as a reflex, where they hadn’t even started their exhale yet, and they’re answering me, it’s like my mom, my dog, my cat, my sister, my brother, or there will be like a really long pause. And they really have to think before they gave me an answer. And this started happening over and over and over and over again. And I thought, this is a pattern What’s going on here? So if nobody thinks they’re as happy as they possibly could be, and then either, their idea of what makes them happy is a reflex, right? It’s not a conscious decision of what you’re sharing. It’s just like a reflex, or it took you a long time to answer that question, then No wonder you’re not as happy as you possibly could be. Because we haven’t taken the time to really focus on what it is that makes us happy. And so I think that, you know, if you’re listening right now, a really great place to start this conversation or to continue this conversation, if you’ve been having it with yourself for a while, is really starting to identify what are those things in my life that make me happy? And being able to answer that question for ourselves. And this is a great practice for a couple reasons. One, because then we know what makes us happy. And awareness is the first step to any behavior change. So if we want to be happier, we have to know what are those things in my life that I do that make me happy in order to do more of them, right? And it starts to allow us to evaluate our life and to start to become a conscious creator. Because once we know what makes us happy, we can start to find ways to do more of that or to do less of things that don’t make us happy right at the same time. And so starting to ask ourselves that question because nobody can answer that question for ourselves. But us, I can’t tell you what makes you happy? I could guess but I don’t know, because the only person that knows you, and the only person that can answer that question is you. And so I think, doing that, and there’s actually a fun activity that I like to do, because sometimes people will be like, Okay, well, Julian, like, how do I figure that out. So I have this activity, I call it Happy hunting. But it’s just basically you take a piece of paper, or the note section, your phone or your computer. And then as you go through the day, for one day, or like, I’m a researcher, so sometimes I like to do for like three days, because I want more data. It’s after you do everything in your day, write down, this is one column, it says, happier, and then less happy. And so as you do things, so Okay, I made breakfast that made me less happy, because I hate cooking. But then I talked to my friend that made me more happy. So you start to create this list of what happened in your day, and you start to look at, okay, well, what’s on my list and the column of more happy, and what’s in my list on the column of less happy. And that’s such a great place to start. Because I mean, the reality is that we’re adults in this life. And sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to do. I don’t like doing laundry, I don’t like making my bed. I don’t like cooking. But guess what, if I want to eat and sleep that I have to do those things. So part of it is just being a functioning member of society. And at the same time, there will be things on that list that, oh, I can do less of that. Or I can do that less often. Or I can do more of that, or I can increase the frequency of things that I do. And when we start to really tune in and to answer that question for ourself of what it is that makes us happy. That to me is the most powerful way to start. If we want to learn how to sort of start to grow that happiness muscle for ourselves.

Loren Runion 51:35
That’s a powerful takeaway, and really, really good advice. And I’d like to just add to that not to judge what comes up, yes, you said that you would like the people just listed off it was like they’re listening what they think should make them happy. But like, Who cares what it is, write it down, don’t tell anyone burn the paper, whatever you want to do, don’t judge it. Just do it. As long as it’s, you know, reasonable.

Dr. Gillian Mandich 51:56
I love I love that. And love that you added that because it’s so true. Because as soon as you start judging ourselves, then we’re starting to be critical of it, as opposed to just being an artist. And, you know, like, I love jigsaw puzzles. And I’m like, some people think you know, you want to do a jigsaw puzzle on a Friday night. But I’m like, No, I love it. It makes me happy. And I don’t want to get into judging myself that oh, you know, that’s not a cool activity, or whatever the story is. Because you like it and you like what you like, and when we can remove the judgment. That’s such a powerful way to have compassion and grace for ourselves. And I think that in this day and age, we all could use a lot more compassion and grace for ourselves. That’s one really great way to give yourself that gift is to remove that judgment.

Loren Runion 52:39
So true. Well, where can everyone find you if they would like to follow along more and learn more about your research and everything that you offer?

Dr. Gillian Mandich 52:46
Yeah, so my website is my name, which is Julian manage, and I’m dealing with a G. So it’s g i ll, I N, Ma, n di ch. So that’s a good hub. There’s a lot of stuff there. And then my company is called the International happiness institute of health science research. So we do a lot more sort of corporate consulting, I do a lot of work with brands where we’ll collect research, and then use that to shape different media campaigns or social campaigns. So that’s kind of a fun place sort of more on the corporate side of happiness, but my Instagram and all my socials My name is Julien manage and that’s a great place to find me.

Loren Runion 53:21
Thank you, thank you so much for your time today and sharing all of this awesome information.

Dr. Gillian Mandich 53:27
Oh, thank you for having me. You know, I really I celebrate you for for putting this out and to create the container for us to have this conversation. You know, I really You’re such a light. And to be able to share that with a world that didn’t have this time with you today is really made me happy. So thank you. Same here.

Loren Runion 53:42
Thank you so much. Thank you so much for listening to another episode of the Align and expand podcast. If you’re an iTunes listener, and you loved this episode, please leave a review. And if you leave a review, send me a screenshot and then I will be sending you a special exclusive meditation made only for my listeners who are so kind enough to take time out of their day to leave review of the podcast.

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Resources

Connect with Dr. Gillian Mandich on Instagram | Website | Course

Resources Mentioned: The Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing by Bronnie Ware

If you have any questions, thoughts or just want to chat be sure to email them to hello@lorenrunion.com