Arthur Brooks talks about you know, happiness is love, and it's true. It's love, you know, and it's love. It's in personal love, it's romantic love, it's filial love, it's parent love, caregiver love, love for the planet, animals, whatever it is. But it's this amazing feeling and significance and largely you feel that with people.
Welcome to the Psychology Podcast. Today is great to have Karen Guggenheim on the show. Karen is a pioneer in the global happiness movement, having created the World Happiness Summit. She's also an author and speaker who inspires people about how to grow post trauma and rebuild a life focused on meaning, purpose, and happiness. In this episode, we discuss her new book, Cultivating Happiness, Overcome Trauma and Positively Transform your life. Is it possible to overcome pain by learning
to be happy? This This is the question Karen Guggenheim asked herself after the sudden death of her husband in twenty thirteen. In this episode, we talk about her own personal journey and also how happiness can be learned through small daily changes that we can all bring more compassion positively into our days to feel better about ourselves and others and to deal with adversity. So that further ado,
I'll bring you Karen Guggenheim. Karen Guggenheim, it is so amazing to have you on the Psychology Podcast.
I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for having me.
Yeah. I wanted to do on the show for a long time.
Thank you. Yeah, I've definitely wanted to be here, and I flew all the way to New York to be here with you.
Incredible, so honored. So tell me, like, who is Karen Guggenheim? You know, how would you describe yourself?
Well, I was waiting for you to tell me that.
You want others to define your identity.
No, no, absolutely not, But I feel like it's I have, of course my identity, but in the last eleven years it's really changed, some of it through my willful action and then some just because of the events that happened in my life. So my identity has shifted a little bit from you know, wife and to widow for example. So that was a shifting identity. But at the core, I think who I am is definitely I'm a mom, I'm a friend, I'm a daughter, I'm a sister, I think I if I can say I'm a visionary, I
feel like I'm a catalyst as well. So I've taken pain and tried to do something that is helpful and beneficial and good, and that's who I am.
Amazing. At what point in the story of your life did you get interested in happiness?
After my life broke?
When was that?
So? About? So eleven years ago my husband died suddenly from the flu, and yeah, and I was married to him half my life, literally, and so so much of me was tied to this relationship and to this person because we had a really good, strong marriage and friendship. We were very very good friends, and he really got me and I got him, and so it was.
A very.
It was a very welcoming relationship and a relationship of belonging and you know, romance whatever. But the most important part it was that I could be totally myself with this person and not feel judged and just feel home. And when that ended, my first inclination was to shut off to the world, make the room really cold, get into my bed, put down the blinders, and just lay there. Right And then I remember it had children, and so I knew that I had to show up for them.
And so I decided to live, and that meant that I was going to become an active participant in my life. And to me, that meant that my purpose was going to be happiness, and I was going to get to happiness. And I didn't know how. I didn't know definitely about the scientific definition of happiness or well being. I just intuitively knew that for me, survival meant that I had to like overshoot it. It had to be so great and so wonderful that I'd want to live in that life.
And the first step I knew to go into that life was to feel the pain. Because when you are in shock or in laws, the shock first, so the pain is not immediate, and there's kind of like that decision of am I going to avoid it? Am I gonna use any kind of tricks and to get away from it? But since I knew that I wanted to go to happiness, of course I've realized then it's inside. You don't go out, you go in. But the first step was to feel that pain, and so I embraced
the pain. I didn't wallow in it, but I embraced it. And four months after he died. I was getting an NBA Georgetown University because I knew that I had to retrain, you know, my career and so and I wanted to be with people. It was very important for me to be with I didn't want to be with people, but I knew that where for where I was going, I needed to see people. So I began to travel every other weekend and to Washington, and so accidentally I became happy again.
Wow. What were you What was your job before eleven years ago?
So international crisis management communicator. I was a former journalist, so I've always been one of the ims who am my identity. I'm a storyteller. So I've been a storyteller all my life, and so in a way, my work now is a different kind of storytelling. I'm storytelling happiness.
Where were you born?
I was born?
Said that? Okay, yes, wow, and you were When did you come to America? Well?
The first I always came, you know, back and forth, because my mom was actually born in La My father's German, so we're an international family. Yeah. But to live really was when I think it was it was seventh grade maybe, yeah.
Wow, So you you've had quite an interesting life.
So far, it's been interesting.
Y's been a journey and you've kind of and where you're at now is on happiness. Why do you think happiness is so important? Can compare it to other things you could have focused on, like achievement or even self actualization? You know why happiness?
Because happiness is something that you feel in your gut, right, And so I believe that when you narrow it down, we do things because we want to be happier, because we want others to be happy that we care about, right, And so self actualization and self awareness and all these other things I think our components for us to become happier, right, And so I just believe that happiness is incredibly important when we define it in the correct way, right, that
it's not just pleasure to find it for me. So, you know, it's funny because my definition largely came from a conversation with a Robert business dinner. He's wonderful.
Yeah, he's one of my mentors.
Yeah, he's great. It's just so wonderful. And you know he said, you know, happiness has a cognitive component and an emotional component, and it's universal that it feels good. The other thing that I got from rich Lard is that the happiness shouldn't hurt other people, right, You're for sort of your happiness shouldn't be here, yes, which is important, right, or even yourself exactly, not to hurt others or yourself.
And and then what I love the most is a cognitive component, right, And that's where I guess achievement and purpose and meaning, significance, mindfulness, and then the ways of being, of being kind and compassionate and being altruistic, and all of these things are the ones, the components of happiness and relationships in particular, that you can do something about. And that way you can construct your happiness in a way because as you do that, then you're hedging for
more moments of positive emotion. So it's not that it's linear positive emotion, but emotion, but it's the trend towards. So for me, happiness is that that line, that trend that is towards more positive emotion. Understanding that you know the totality of human experience is going to bring you to those low moments. But perhaps when you learn these frameworks, you don't go as slow as you would have or stay there as long as you would have if you wouldn't be practicing these habits.
I want to just say the name of your book and I'll show it for those looking as well. Cultivating happiness over colon, overcome trauma, and positively transform your life. I think maybe some people not expect that subtitle right after that title, and so it's it's surprising and it's interesting. I want to double click on the word trauma for a second. I feel like the word trauma's overused these days. Everything is now trauma, you know, like back pain, It's like, okay, that's trauma.
Or if someone says, get what you wanted trauma.
If someone doesn't, or you don't agree, even you don't agree with someone you know politically or whatever, it's like, don't traumatize me by telling me your you know, beliefs that are different than mine. How do you define trauma? I asked you to define happiness. These are very weighty questions. Now can you define trauma?
You know? I don't think I can. I can define my experience with it, and I have come to realize that good answer that you can't define laws. You can't define trauma in a way because what is traumatic to you may not be to me. Right and so what I can say with my experience and trauma is to have an experience which shakes the foundation maybe of your life,
of your identity, of your future. I feel that, you know, when I would in that room and my husband was dying, because I was there when when he was dying and it was like cold, it's cold blue. It wasn't code red. I was expecting code red. It's really cold blue. And you have little the doctors working on him and all that stuff, and the hyperreality of the moment. I never understood, you know, like this is another thing. It's life for
death that you're here, it's life for death. If you do that, when you've seen death, you understand what death is. And when we talk about life or death, it's not that you know. And that was guilty of doing that too, Like it's not when you were in that moment, Oh, this is what we're talking about. When I had to call my kids and tell them their father had died, that's real. That's trauma. That's a moment in time that shakes your entire, your entire you know, humanity. And so
for me that was a really traumatic experience. And then you know, making that choice to grow from the experience was like the most amazing thing ever, and so grateful that I was able to do that. How I was able to do that, I don't know. So for me, I feel and I have a spiritual life, right, I'm not very I'm not religious, but I do have a spiritual life, and I feel it something greater than myself supported me in that moment because my reaction was not like a natural reaction to what occurred.
Oh that's interesting, or what if? What if alternatively a different side of yourself came out that was always within you.
Possibly, but it was not natural.
Consciousness.
As he was dying, and I kind of blocked this out. But my sister was also there. She said that I started. I started. I tapped into gratitude immediately as he's dying. I was grateful to him as the thought. As he's dying, and I'm telling him, I'm so grateful to you. You know, you're such a great dad, You're a great husband.
You know.
It's okay, don't worry about it. I got it, you know. And and so it was like a really not The nurses and the doctors were looking at me like this lady's insane. But that's how I could live through the moment, you know.
Of course, And well you bring a lot of this into your book. I just started, you know, kind of where your book starts off, which is really viewing pain and loss as catalysts for change. So you see a real great benefit to think of think of really hard life challenges in that way.
Yeah, well, there's nothing you can do about it, right, Some things you can do you can't, like.
Yeah, as Irvin Yelm says, sooner or later, you have to give up all hope for a better past exactly.
And and Fred Luskin talks about that too at at the Summit, the World Happiness Summit, And it's true, you know, But what I also learned, I learned so many different things.
And one of the things that is so important to realize is that when you let go of the pain, and it takes a while because you need to have the tincture of time to heal some of the some of it, but when you're willing to let go of the pain, and sometimes when we've lost something, we hold onto the pain because we're afraid that if we let go, we're gonna forget the person. But what I have experienced in letting go of the pain. Is the love has grown so obviously not romantic love because my husband is
not here. But I can remember conversations. I can remember moments that make me feel so loved even today that I didn't have access to when I was just feeling the pain.
Something else another part of deep, deep reservoirs of strength or within you. Yeah, that, I mean, it's it's interesting how we want to think about that. But you know, whether it's something outside yourself or it's whether it's something that was hidden inside yourself. You know, I'm not sure.
You know. I grew up in a third world country, so I saw a lot of pain, yeah, but I saw a lot of happiness and I saw a lot of joy in the midst of people who really really poor in like really unfair situations. And so there was a grit and a resilience and not avoiding and saying okay, our life is is great. And there's something about the Necaraguan people because they can make fun or not fun, but bring laughter into a really challenging situation and accepting the situation is challenging.
Well. Humor, I think is one of the most underrated tools in the psychotherapy slash coaching toolkit. So I agree, especially absurdist humor. Yeah, I mean everything is so absurd, like I bet your your wife here, I bet even him just here in New York, traveling here, it was absurd like and then everything you know, everywhere you go in New York there's like some catastrophe. Right, It's amazing. You also talk about neuroplasticity and connecting with purpose under
times of distress. It sounds like you went through both when when your husband passed. Is that right?
Yes? So I actually I rewired my brain completely, like I am not naturally a joyful person or temperaments. No, I was, you know, I wasn't a glass have full person really no, And none of this came natural to me. That's what I was always I was since a little kid, had been courageous and perseverance. So I use those strengths too,
and then analytical. So first I sliceaid, well, I'm going to live because I'm going to be a good mom, Like being a mom is super important to me, and so for that to happen, I need to do these things. And then made the commitment. And that's something else that I think is you know we're living in a time I think it's so important to build resilience and to build resilient kids. And I agree, And we need to be committed to I think you know, to be committed
to certain things in certain ways of being. And so one of the things that I learned is that we have a to do list, right, every day we have to do list? But what about a to be list? What do you want to be today? You want to be kind, you want to be nice, you want to be altruistic, you want to be forgiving. You get to control that, and when you do that, you know the experience of life for me at least softens, and then I'm able to Okay, that's disappointing. But then I got
like twenty seven other things were pretty cool. So it's I used to be focused on what thing, one thing I didn't get instead of the twenty seven wonderful things I got.
Or even like the one person who criticizes you over all the people that love and then you call everybody, yeah, and you want them to sympathize with you.
Absolutely, and somebody I agree, agree, and somebody will be like, oh but I heard the compliment and not talk about that I need to talk to you.
You know. Wow, so you really think you fundamentally like transformed eleven years ago. I mean, that's incredible. You know, your book could have also been about transformation, could have been about a lot of things.
No, it is, it's but totally it is about a transformation.
But I'm saying, I guess that could have been one of the words in the title as well.
You're right, You're right. But you know, in essence, when he died, I was transformed immediately into into wife immediately, no, no, no wife, you know, like and then our family structure we went from four to three and as having a partner in raising children no more. So you like, who do you ask? Something that you know I talk about is that I felt like I was born again in not in the born again I saw Jesus type, but born again in that this is a new reality, this
is a new identity. I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing, and I have very adult responsibilities because I'm responsible for exclusively for my kids in our life, and I'm feeling completely lost, you.
Know, yeah, yeah, I mean there's no there's no set timetable for grief. You know, some people don't show post traumatic growth, you know, yes, And what would you say are some of the biggest, biggest things people can do if they want to kind of accelerate that growth process.
Well, the very first thing I want to tell everybody who's listening is that it's possible. So just by opening that window into the possibilities of your life. And it doesn't matter if you don't know how. It doesn't matter if it looks super bleak, because it does, and you know, but the possibility that it can happen will head you towards it possibly happening, and you know, being patient and loving with yourself and some of the things that I did.
For example, I remember that my nephew had given me the Christmas before a T shirt and it said I am Happiness. And I wore the T shirt after my husband died. Not because I was happy, but I figured, if we wear a shirt for a team, we follow because we're like fans and we support that team or what they're about. So I said, I'm gonna wear the happiness shirt because this is where I'd like to be.
Yeah, behavioral activation, but the cognitions follow the behavior.
And then the other thing I started copying what happy people do.
How do you know who are happy people? Like? How do you know that?
Well? I saw them. They look joyful, they look engage in life, they look like they wanted to do things. So that's not ha ha, but like, oh, you know, they have energy, so they are creative. And so that to me was like, okay, that looks like something that could be happiness, right, And so that meant, you know, saying yes eventually to go and have lunch with the group.
So I was.
I told you I was doing my MBA, and so I would fly into Washington, DC. And I would originally fly in for the classes and fly out immediately, like the classes over, I had to the airport and come back because my younger son was still in high school in Miami. And then I started staying and leaving on Sunday. So then I would go to dinner with the group. And I remember one year out after his death. And
there are two things about that. One is it's funny that you think it's like, Okay, you've passed the first anniversary, the first Christmas, the first New Year's, the first Father's Day, first birthday, and then it's like okay, now it's not gonna hurt because I've done the first one. And when you realized first year, day one that it still hurts, it's almost as impacting as the original laws because you realize it's a forever deal in one way or the other.
So acceptance on that and letting go right and the other thing. I remember, I was at lunch with a group of friends. Somebody said something really funny and I'm analyzing. I'm like, ooh, that was funny, and I go, can I laugh? Is it appropriate for how long? Can It's been a year? But is it enough a year? It should be a year and a half. And I had
this whole internal conversation. And then the same way that we talk about, you know, toxic positivity, like you also shouldn't block the fact that if you're joyful in a moment that that's okay, right also, And so I was like, Okay, I'm gonna laugh. I'm going to laugh. And I laughed, and that was like the snowballing effect. What other things were to come that I said yes to because I allowed myself to feel around all my feelings.
Yeah, the permission to laugh, that'd be another book.
Permission to laugh absolutely, because we have labels right, and for me, when I heard the word widow, for some reason till this day, I think of like The Godfather or an old Italian movie where now you your hair's cut off, your your you went to the nunner or whatever you were in black for the rest of your life. And that's why I'm wearing pink pants, you know, thank you.
It's it's it's these labels and I I you know, till this day, when you sign your you're filling out paperwork, like to go to the doctor, it says single, married or widow? What can I just be single? Why why do I have to, you know, go to that moment again as widow? And and uh, those are things that perhaps we can do away with, but you're only aware of it if if you're in that category. But those words mean a lot. And so I don't feel like
in my identity that I am a widow. I think there's something that happened that that widowhood is part of it, but something else that I learned from Moga Dot, who's really great. He wrote a book called Self for Happy in many other books, but we connected really closely because he sadly lost his son tragically from an emergency appendectomy, and that then dedicated his life to promoting happiness at
scale whatever. And he said that his son's name was Ali, and so Ali lived and Eli died, and he chooses to focus equally true, he focuses on the part that he lived, and so for me, I choose to do
the same. Instead of getting stuck in the bit that my husband died and he died young, and you know, unfortunately from the flues, which you know still boggles my mind, I choose to focus on the part that he lived and the work that I do, you know, with the World Happiness Summit, is bringing legacy to the kind of
person that he was. He's incredibly kind, he was a scientist, it was a physician, and so all of those components come up in my work and it makes me feel joyful and also gives me a lot of meaning and purpose to bring that way of being that he was in the work that I do today.
Beautiful, let's move on to the part of your book where you talk about the importance of movement and breathing, very undervalued things in our society, with everyone so focusing on their work, right and not so, tell me a little about the importance of these exercises.
So thankfully I had been doing yoga for about fifteen years, so the power of the conscious breath, and actually that got me through the moment of him dying. I just went into breathing, conscious breathing, because I could have easily fainted, but I went again, what do I control in this situation where I control? I can control my breath because everything was out of control, and so I tapped into
the breathing. And I think that's something that we have always not I think, but we we actually have always within our control our breath in any given circumstance. So if you're you know, like for a panic attack, or you're getting news that are really challenging, there's a layoff, you know, your love life, you didn't get the answer you wanted, et cetera. You can go into conscious breathing and then that has all the reactions that are happening,
you know, biologically through your body. That then is bringing you into coherence, which is really amazing. And then the other part about movement, So I see that into physical movement but also mental movement. Not get stuck. And you know, we all know about the growth versus the Mike fixed mindset. And so for me that movement is so important to go into the growth and then moving your body, you know,
again letting biology do its bit. So where if you listen to music or or you move with dance, then you're bypassing cognition, you're letting biology help you out into into going towards greater happiness or or well being or releasing stress.
Wow, wonderful. Any any particular people you followed that that helped you the most with learning breathing techniques, Any any shout outs you want to give?
Oh, my goodness. So I had my yoga instructor in Miami who helped me out a lot.
What's their name, So it's it's.
Her, actually, Veronica Vidal. She's my yoga instructor. And then I became certified. That was before my husband died, But that helped me a lot certified. Yeah, yeah, beautiful.
So you had a new appreciation of life right after this? And and so what what kind of message you want to get people who are are desperately trying to find any meaning in their life anymore?
So, you know, I mean sometimes I can also say that I sympathize with whoever's going through a lot of anxiety because I have anxiety, so it's something that I deal with. You know, it's sometimes it's really hard because you get into this you know, yes, viral.
Yeah, we all have our loops.
We went to the loop and break you see how you can break the loop, and that means putting in rituals that you commit to. So, for example, I commit every morning to reading and journaling and meditating and whichever way you meditate, you know, whatever it is that whether it's prayer or it's you know, mindfulness practice or whatever it is. Breathing techniques, those are kind of hacks into the spiraling. And I go for a walk almost every morning for about four miles. Helps me a lot to
be out in nature and to experience that. I listened to music when I'm taking a shower, so that helps me reset as well. I don't I don't listen to news, So for example, you get a lot of people like, oh my god, news are stressing me out, don't listen to it. And if you really need to do it in the middle of the day when your brain is not that susceptible, So don't do it first day, first thing in the morning or last thing at night. You're not imprinting good things into your brain and that helps,
that helps out. But you know, if you want to tap into meaning, investigate it. You know, before this happened in my life, I feel like I was sitting back, sitting on the bus bench with my purse, waiting for the Happiness bus to come. And it had to be yellow, and it had to be a certain way, it had to be on this street, and like almost hit me with it. And when he died, it was like that park bench like blew up and I had to look at the bus was around the corner. Maybe it was
actually a motorcycle and it was red. So I had to go and be active into finding the purpose in my life, into finding meaning, into creating all these different things. And so it's hard when you're feeling down because you stop moving, right, you stop moving. So it's so just go walk around the block of like one block, it doesn't matter. It's like three minutes. And we think we have to do these gigantic things, but you don't. You
just have to do a little tiny thing. And if you're feeling down, call somebody and offer help on principle, not because you want to do it, but you do it because you at least test how you feel afterwards that you done that, and if you feel good, do it again.
People also tend to think that you have to do everything for some other reason. I like how you say we can savor just for the sake of savoring, you know, and Abraham Asa called them the b values, things that are values in and of themselves. We don't try to get anything else other than those things are ends in themselves. That takes a shift of consciousness. Doesn't allow yourself to do things just for the sake of the thing itself.
Absolutely, absolutely, you know, at the end of the day, you have to have this conversation with yourself and how do you want to mostly feel in your life? And if you mostly want to feel better or have more meaning, invest in that invest time and it hires time, and it requires attention, It requires repetition, and it requires which is the speaker, which is the frameworker, which is the program that resonates for me? Or which are the practices
that work for me? And start to maybe journal and see which are the routines that start to make you feel better and which ones don't stop doing the ones that don't make you feel better and start doing the ones. And it's not about avoiding responsibility or avoiding problems in your life. Believe me, I've had to tackle so many and now as an entrepreneur, it's not easy being an entrepreneur, That's true. But but then I have the conversation, right, do I do I want to you know, put on
the world Happiness on It? Do I want to work? Do I want to work in a large organization? Or do I want to be self employed? And so when you go into yes, that's what I'd like. So then it's part of the process.
You know, what is the World Happiness on It?
The World Happiness on It is this most amazing, amazing event that takes place every March and no it travels around. It brings together the world seating experts and the science
of happiness and well being with a global audience. And it's the experts and practitioners who who are bringing this work into organizations, educational environments, business businesses and how can we learn tools, evidence based tools for a happier life, you know, in individuals, collective well being, like I said, workplaces, schools, et cetera. And last year was in Lake GOMO. This year was in London and we were very honored to
have the US Surgeon General, doctor Vivek Murthy there. We also launched our World Will Being Policy Forum with Professor Lord Lyard at London School of Economics and that is and doctor Murphy was there as well. That is our initiative to bring this into country policy and also education and business because we need the private sector in order
to make this change at scale. Absolutely, And in the next conference in March in Miami, so I hope all of you will be there because it's going to be amazing. It's going to be in Miami Beach at the New World Center. You live in Florida, right, I live in Miami.
It's your hometown. Wonderful. When did you start this conference?
I found it will Haasu in twenty sixteen, and then four, no five months later, we had the first World Happiness Summit in twenty seventeen.
Look at you. We're doing us for so long and it's become a staple of the happiness summits. Yeah, very nice. You've become You've become a rising legend in the field of happiness studies.
I'm very happy to be able to share what I have learned, and to share work, you know, like your work and the work of others who have dedicated their lives to to really bringing evidence and research into it. Because we know this intuitively, and we've been talking about this for what thousands of years and human happiness right, and and I love the fact that we have the science to support what we know intuitively and we know
that it's the right thing to do. But now we have the metrics to also support that.
Agreed, No no lives, no lives detected. There no lives detect you know. So I want to return to your book. I captured the moment when you said the world happiness on it, so we took a little detour there, but glad that we were able to talk about the world happiness. Let's return to your book for a second. Relationships, because you have a whole really cool section on relationships and what does it take to have a happy relationship.
It takes awareness, decision making. I love the Powelski's they talk about positive relations the positive relationship.
Hi, Susie.
I love it when they talk about when you ask some your spouse or your partner to go to the supermarket and you ask for ten items and they bring back nine. So don't focus on the one day left out, which we tend to do. Right, That will go a long way in your relationship making, you know, focus on on everything and that's working well, and then address what's not, but perhaps through a constructive lens, you know, and really understand that we are our relationships. I mean, we're you know,
we're nothing without people. Yes, you know, we need people. We enjoy people. I think the meaning and the reflection is in people. And so investing the best of our time is also important, right, It shouldn't be scraps of our time with the most important people in our in our world, because in our world, in our in our lives, we tend to do that sometimes and ah, they love us.
It's okay, you know, and that's that's not fair to you and to them, because it's so magical to have people in your life who love like love is the most amazing thing. Like Arthur Brooks talks about, you know, happiness is love, and it's true. It's love, you know, and it's it's love. It's in personal love, it's romantic love,
it's filial love, it's parent love, caregiver love. Love for the planet, animals, whatever it is, but it's this this amazing feeling and significance, and largely you feel that with people.
Yeah, for sure, or animals sometimes absolutely. I felt that with your dog.
Yes, it's adorable. And I'm sorry to hear they're stressed a little bit. So you said they were stressed a little bit too stress.
Yeah, I'm very sorry.
We spoil him though, we spoil him.
Yeah, Okay, I want to Uh, there's a chapter I really like in your book on forgiveness. Can you talk a little about why forgiveness is so important in relationships?
I love forgiveness and we talked about earlier. You know, Fred Luskin out of Stanford. He's spoken at except for the first one, at every summit, and he usually ends the conference because it's the.
Hardest thing and the happiness that is forgiveness, and you know, for obvious reasons, because usually when forgiveness is involved, it is because we feel an injury and that's emotional and a lot of other things.
Tied into it. But it's such an important thing if you want to be happier, because you allow fertile ground for your happiness to thrive, right, and that doesn't mean that what happened is okay, and some things will never ever be okay. And you don't even have to forgive the person, you know verbally or they may not even be aware. You just have to really forgive in your heart, in your mind. But it's just the most amazing thing.
And then of course if you're you know, forgiveness of friends and you know, misunderstand things in the day to day are also really conducive to positive relationships. But forgiving things that were done. You know, initially I didn't want to forgive the doctors who make the mistakes that caused my husband's death. That was hard to forget. It was really hard. It was really really hard. But what am I going to do with it? You know, what am
I going to do with it? Because if you attached to unforgiveness and bitterness, it's taking more away from it. It's taking energy that I can invest in my children,
invest in myself, invest in my business. My creativity would go down, my sense of hope would go down, because it's a drain, right, and so it's like one of the most important things, and some people they don't know how to begin, right, and just having a willingness is the first step, and and I really encourage those that are struggling with that to look at Fred's work because it's amazing. And we have our content, by the way, free on our YouTube channel, and so you can see the talks there.
The World Happiness YouTube channel.
Yes, the World Happiness.
To put up.
Yes, we wanted to do that because it's so it's it's amazing and against transformational and the talks are like they blow your mind.
I bet how many people attend these.
We talk about that round one thousand. And then we also do it online, so some people, some people join online, and we do more than that. We do different kinds of programs. So we collaborated with the Ukrainian positive psychologist a La Clemenko and we did two programs with her. One of them Marty was involved and Selement and so
it would therefore people in Ukraine. And we did that for free, free programs, one called Resilient two point zero and over one hundred thousand people have participated since last year, so that's really it's really amazing. And so when people say, oh, well do you is it the right time to talk about happiness? Because that's another thing that I get is it the right time because this is where that is happening. And so the right time to talk about happiness is
when you're ready to talk about happiness, right. And what I have found that people who are suffering they want to know about these things. And so in March, you know, twenty twenty two, we had a lot of interest from people in Ukraine as they were, you know, beginning with the war and such, and we got some requests from people who were actually in camps in Poland saying I can you know? They wanted to buy a online so we donated it. What kind of camps it just refugee.
They were just refuge you know, they were just fleeing. Some people free access to the they wanted to They said, we're suffering. You know, we know that there's a World Happiness Summit. Can I buy a ticket or whatever? And so we donated those that access for free to to be able to listen in virtually. But what I'm trying to say is that you know, it's always the right time. Now, we never push right and show it in anybody's face.
What we're saying is that we're a platform for this amazing work that people are doing, and that we're now doing. So if you would like to understand what science says about well being, says about happiness, about resilience, about great about forgiveness, kindness, meaning and purpose, here it is, you know. And so beyond that now we've done you know, we do workshops, and we're doing things in education as well, and and now moving into a women's initiative, So a
women initiative. We're having the launch of the event at Gallop Headquarters in Washington, d C. On December fourth, and it's talking about women's well being at work because it's suffered a lot and me well, because one of the key aspects is that, you know, women tend to be the care the caregivers and responsible. Largely it's changing now, which is wonderful to see more of men's caregiving, you know, to to to children, but largely it's women. So that's
very that impacts work. It's yeah, it's it's hard, it's challenging. So so we're going to look at that. And of course, when whether it's men or women, when one thrives, it trickles to the other. The same when when we do
things for children, it helps also the community. So what we're trying to do is also go into different points we can help and shed light on different things that perhaps others are not doing at that moment, so that we can all thrive together and create what Liar talks about, the win win scenarios to move away from cerosome games. And that's from an economist, right, talking about creating these opportunities for growth.
Yes, and Mas would call them synergy synergies. So enhanced spirituality is the last part of your book. What was enhanced? What is enhanced spirituality?
So I, like I shared, you know earlier when when my husband passed away, I had this kind of spiritual, immediate spiritual I don't know what it was. It was like like a like a holding something. I felt like something held me in that moment. And so from then on I just have been able to tap into this, you know, collective humanity and the importance of all of us being okay together and tapping into the fact that we're human beingness right and so, and we're more alike
than not even though we have all these differences. And that for me is spirituality and the things that bind us together and love, you know, that's that type of spirituality in that sense, and so the way that it was enhanced or that through the experience or through the post traumatic growth, is that understanding that we are all intertwined.
Really wonderful all things are putting in this world. And I'm so glad we find me were able to do this podcast and good luck on your book tour.
Thank you so much, and thank you for all the work you're doing into making this world a better place and the highlighting the work of others, and your work is so really important in this world too. Thank you.