Embark on a journey to true contentment with Tamara Zoner, the vibrant happiness expert, as she unpacks the transformative habits of a joy-infused life. By the end of the episode, you'll have a treasure chest of strategies to foster an enduring sense of peace and well-being. Tamara doesn't just hand over the keys to happiness; she walks us through the essential daily actions and mindset shifts necessary to cultivate a resilient spirit.
Discover the power of midlife transformation as Tamara guides us through the intricacies of self-discovery and reconnecting with dormant passions. You'll find encouragement to explore what truly makes you tick, as we discuss strategies for overcoming the inner critic and the necessity of positive affirmations. This isn't just about replacing old tapes in our heads; it's about crafting a rich tapestry of life that aligns with your deepest joys and aspirations. Tamara's insights into positive psychology light a path for those seeking to rejuvenate their sense of purpose and infuse each day with genuine happiness.
Tune in, take notes, and most importantly, open your heart to the possibilities of a life crafted with intention, love, and boundless joy.
How To Find Tamara
Tamara Website is HERE
Find Tamara on IG HERE
Tamara on Facebook HERE
Resources Mentioned on the Episode
Book by Robert Waldinger: The Good Life
Book by Marci Shimoff: Happy For No Reason
Yale Researcher Laurie Santos: The Science of Wellbeing
Let's Be Friends
Hang out with Heather on IG @greenpalettekitchen or on FB HERE.
Let's Talk!
Whether you are looking for 1-1 nutrition coaching or kitchen coaching let's have a chat. Click HERE to reach out to Heather.
Did You Love This Episode?
"I love Heather and the Real Food Stories Podcast!" If this is you, please do not hesitate to leave a five-star review on Apple or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Embark on a journey to true contentment with Tamara Zoner, the vibrant happiness expert, as she unpacks the transformative habits of a joy-infused life. By the end of the episode, you'll have a treasure chest of strategies to foster an enduring sense of peace and well-being. Tamara doesn't just hand over the keys to happiness; she walks us through the essential daily actions and mindset shifts necessary to cultivate a resilient spirit.
Discover the power of midlife transformation as Tamara guides us through the intricacies of self-discovery and reconnecting with dormant passions. You'll find encouragement to explore what truly makes you tick, as we discuss strategies for overcoming the inner critic and the necessity of positive affirmations. This isn't just about replacing old tapes in our heads; it's about crafting a rich tapestry of life that aligns with your deepest joys and aspirations. Tamara's insights into positive psychology light a path for those seeking to rejuvenate their sense of purpose and infuse each day with genuine happiness.
Tune in, take notes, and most importantly, open your heart to the possibilities of a life crafted with intention, love, and boundless joy.
How To Find Tamara
Tamara Website is HERE
Find Tamara on IG HERE
Tamara on Facebook HERE
Resources Mentioned on the Episode
Book by Robert Waldinger: The Good Life
Book by Marci Shimoff: Happy For No Reason
Yale Researcher Laurie Santos: The Science of Wellbeing
Let's Be Friends
Hang out with Heather on IG @greenpalettekitchen or on FB HERE.
Let's Talk!
Whether you are looking for 1-1 nutrition coaching or kitchen coaching let's have a chat. Click HERE to reach out to Heather.
Did You Love This Episode?
"I love Heather and the Real Food Stories Podcast!" If this is you, please do not hesitate to leave a five-star review on Apple or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Hey everybody and welcome back. Today I am with Tamara Zoner. Tamara is a speaker and coach who is on a mission to create greater happiness in the world by teaching individuals and groups the actions and habits of happiness. A show not tell, single mom to three awesome kids and a karaoke enthusiast, tamara demonstrates daily how to create a life you love Energetic and enthusiastic. She brings a room to life with her positive presence, even when that presence is virtual. She can speak for hours on the habits and actions of happiness and how people can create a life they love through small, simple changes. With a blend of spirituality, self-love and practicality, tamara makes it feel possible for people to live more authentically, being true to themselves without trying to fake it and shifting their relationships with themselves and others in a loving and respectful way. Tamara works with people through private sessions, speaking engagements and her workshops, which are an experience not to be missed.
Speaker 1:We'll talk about that later. I want to hear more about that. So, hi and wow. I know we could all use an infusion of happiness these days, so I'm really excited to talk to you today. There's so much going on in the world. Obviously I mean right, we've got the 24-hour news cycle. We've got just alarmist news all day long, not to mention just with ourselves, within our own personal lives, in our own little micro worlds, and we worry a lot. I mean, people are just filled with worry. That's sort of the theme I feel like a lot these days. So I'm going to come right out with it and I want to know what the secret is to happiness, because I want what you have.
Speaker 1:Big question Heather way to go right from the start.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so let me give you the definition of happiness that I use in my work. First of all, because I know if I ask 100 people what happiness means to them, I'll get 100 different answers. So the working definition that I use is that happiness is an inner state of peace and well-being that doesn't depend on circumstances. Okay, inner state of peace and well-being that doesn't depend on circumstances, because so many of us have the thinking. We think a lot, by the way. We think around 60,000 thoughts a day and primarily they are negative, repeated thoughts, day after day after day, and so we really want to work on catching those. But we think that you know well, if this changed or that changed, or the news got better, or I got a raise, or my partner listened to me or my kids called more often, then I'll be happy. And this is the big myth of happiness. It's not reality. The reality is that reality continues to happen, life continues to happen and we get to do the inner work that creates that peace and well-being from within so that we can handle the external situations with more peace and ease and flow.
Speaker 2:And the secret is that happiness is a practice. It's a practice Every day, I practice my tools. I use my tools so that they're available to me when I most need them, because if I'm not, you know, if I'm not using the weights, I can't build the muscle, I won't be able to pick up the four ton horse or whatever it is that I need to pick up in my life, right, sometimes our challenges and problems feel like a four ton horse, but if I'm working out, if I'm building muscle on a regular daily basis, then when you know what hits the fans, I've got the skills and tools and practices in place. So when my brain goes well, everything is scary and we're in the spider flight emergency response, it's motor memory that we've built. We know what to do, we know to take a deep breath, we know, just by practice, the skills that we can immediately call on to get us through life's challenging moments, because those don't go away, no matter how happy we are.
Speaker 1:Exactly right. We're always going to come up with things like getting our way, and I love what you said about this, if only because I think a lot of people I mean myself included this is a practice for me too. You know that maybe back before I started practicing this more, but that if only you on the outsider would change, then I can be happy. Or if only the war in Israel would stop, then I could feel like I can sleep at night, or you know all the outside circumstances. So I understand that this is definitely a practice, right, but happiness comes from within your contentment, serenity, whatever you want to call it, right, there's different names for it, but you mentioned that there's skills and tools and practices that you teach your clients. So what? Because it's easy to say, you know, just stop saying it if only like. Happiness comes from within. But what are the skills that you teach your clients to do on a daily basis?
Speaker 2:I'm going to bring it down to like the seven main habits of happiness, because the research has found that there are seven main areas or habits of happiness and we've also found that the biggest difference between happy people and unhappy people is simply that we have different habits. So it all comes down to these different habits of thinking and behaving right, so in an inside and outside. So the first of the seven is taking responsibility for your happiness, right? We were just talking about how, if they change, if they change.
Speaker 2:If that change, then I'd be happy. But that's so disempowering, heather, that's me just giving away my happiness to anybody out there who cares to take care of it for me, and it doesn't allow me to do it myself. So we take responsibility for our happiness and we recognize that, while we can't always change situations, we can always change the way that we think about them. Okay, which brings us to the mind. So the mind don't believe everything you think is the habit we practice here. We question our thoughts, we clean up our thinking patterns because we have natural negativity bias Right. This is why we evolved, because we did pay attention to the negative. It's why the news plays on that, because they know if they show you all the terrible things happening in the world, they're going to get your attention. And then what we do is we repeat those thoughts over and over and over. So on average, we have 60,000 thoughts a day.
Speaker 1:That's incredible.
Speaker 2:No, it's crazy, right. 95% of them are repeated. 80% are negative For the average person, right? If we do our work, we can flip that negativity bias into a positivity bias, and there are different tools that fall under each habit to do that. But we'd have to be here for several months to talk about them all. So then we have the pillar of the heart. We talk about the heart. The happiest people in the world live with open, forgiving, generous heart. So if you have a habit of holding a grudge, being resentful, expecting others to change, that's a closed heart.
Speaker 2:We want to practice forgiveness, and forgiveness is a practice too. I swear I forgive my ex-husband every other day, right, every other day. We have to forgive ourselves, we have to forgive others for all sorts of things. So, living with an open, generous, loving heart a little bit vulnerable, it might be a little bit risky, but the risk is worth the reward. So the heart.
Speaker 2:Then we have the pillar of the body. We only get this one this time around, right? So are we taking care of our bodies? This is really vital in the habit of happiness. To be happy requires feeling pretty good. It's really hard to be happy if we're chronically ill, fatigued, tired, and vice versa, it's hard to be depressive. We're feeling really good in our bodies. So we want to take the best care of ourselves that we can, and this one can be really sticky for people because they're like oh, I don't want to exercise, I don't want to eat, right, I want to overindulge, especially around the holidays. I want to whatever. I've got to work so much that I only get four hours of sleep. But sleep, nutrition and movement are the three main areas of the body, and we've got to, at least in moderation, take better care of ourselves, take better care of ourselves.
Speaker 2:So then we have the soul and this one. It doesn't matter if you believe in God, if you call it mother nature, source spirit, the yada yada, I don't care. What matters in this piece is that you believe that there's something greater than yourself. The happiest people in the world believe that there is something greater than themselves, and this allows us to foster that sense of connection with others, with nature, with animals, with all of life and beingness, and it allows us to kind of lean on something to trust, to practice faith, and this area there are tools like prayer or meditation. I consider yoga both an exercise for the body and for the soul, so things like that.
Speaker 2:Then we've got purpose. Cultivating a life of purpose and meaning is vital for our happiness, and I actually heard a research study on a TED Talk that said and I can't cite it because I can't remember the TED Talk right now, but that said that they did a study of people in their 60s and of the people who had no sense of purpose in their lives. Their life expectancy was only five years, whereas the research shows that happier people live, on average, nine years longer than unhappy people, and so having this sense of purpose and meaning extends the life. Okay, so let's see, we've covered the foundation, which is taking responsibility, the pillar of the mind, the heart, the soul, the body. We have covered purpose and meaning, and so now we get to our relationships. It's what we call the garden in our home for happiness, our relationships, social fitness, as some researchers call it. It's so vital.
Speaker 2:So who are you spending the most time with? Are they supporting you, nourishing you? Are they kind of those toxic weeds in your garden that you really need to clean up? And in this area, we really practice on boundary setting and keeping healthy boundaries. Sometimes we're in a situation that we choose to stay in. Maybe it's a job or maybe it's even family that we're like well, I can't really get rid of those people. I mean, you can, and if you choose to keep them in your environment, then there are ways to create healthier boundaries for yourself, and that's what we do in the area of the garden.
Speaker 2:And then just making sure you get around some people who are positive and uplifting, like a coach, right, people doing this work together, that kind of thing. So those are the seven main areas of happiness, and each one has layers of tools and, you know, not every tool works for every person or every project, and so I teach my clients a lot of tools and we try, on different bits and pieces, to see what really works for you, what resonates and what feels good for you to use. And not everything feels good at first, and that's okay too. It's authentic. It's an authentic practice where we get to feel all the feelings we feel.
Speaker 1:Right, I'm sure sometimes you present some tools and things to try and it's like can be wildly uncomfortable because especially I'm just so. I'm just taking some notes here, I'm just wrote these down and I know, you know, for me and for the I mean for the people that I see as a nutritionist the taking care of your body and then the purpose and meaning in life, I would like to that really stood out for me, because I know women in midlife, in going through the menopause transition and everything is a real wake up call or just a jolt. You know of who they are, because women are suddenly starting to maybe gain weight. You know their bodies are shifting. It's a very confusing time and so it's a really challenging time to then feel happy in your body.
Speaker 1:And then also you know the purpose, thinking I'm now an empty nester, my kids are out of the house. That was a purpose, a big purpose for a lot of women. And now what am I doing? Yeah, so those are two that really stand out, but I mean I know all seven of these just really make a ton of sense. How do you tell me like some of the skills then you would practice with women who are just feeling like very frustrated in their bodies.
Speaker 2:So exceptions is a skill and so you know, in that area first we'd kind of we would practice some self compassion, some self forgiveness practices. There's one particular tool called the whole opponent opponent that I love to use. It's hard to say but it's easy to practice and, if you want, I can teach it to you and your listeners just right now.
Speaker 1:Sure, that would be great.
Speaker 2:It's a very simple practice of four phrases. When you say these phrases, you can imagine you're tapping into whatever you believe is out there as your higher source or nothing. If you don't, you can say these words just to yourself. It really doesn't matter. Again, belief systems are flexible and the four phrases are I'm sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you. I love you. It can be just as simple as that. And for the people who teach this oh, it comes from a Hawaiian technique. Dr Hugh Lenn teaches it and he calls it cleaning. Like we're just. We're cleaning the programming, we're cleaning past memories, we're cleaning ancestral crap that's built up over time, that grandma passed to our mom, who passed it to us and maybe we passed it on to our kids, right? So we're cleaning it all up and I like to imagine it like a whiteboard in my mind or if you're old school, you can go chalkboard out of mind and I just imagine it. I'm saying I'm sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you. I'm wiping that whiteboard clean.
Speaker 1:So will you say those again? I'm just like taking notes. I want to write these down. I'm sorry, please forgive me.
Speaker 2:Thank you. I love you.
Speaker 1:And are you saying these to yourself or are you saying these to, like, outside people?
Speaker 2:Yes, all of that. You can be saying it to yourself, you can be saying it to someone that you've had a challenge with. You can be saying it to an old event, you can be saying it to source. You can say it to anyone, and there's no wrong way If you get the order of the phrases differently than I say it. That's okay too. We're tapping into that connectedness. I was just talking about whatever connects all of us. We're tapping into that and I like to just you know there's a thunderbolt mudra that I don't know if this is video or not, but we just slide our fingers together, thumbs up, hands on hearts, and so I like to pair it with that and just repeat and sometimes I'll use this when I'm having a hard time sleeping.
Speaker 2:Sometimes I'll use this if I'm having some repetitive thoughts. You know that I just I'm like going over a situation that I wasn't happy about over and over and over, and, over and over, and I can't quite quiet down my mind. Well, it's hard to just silence the mind, so if we replace it with those thoughts, I'm sorry, please forgive me. Thank you, I love you. Try this on for like five minutes today and see if it helps.
Speaker 2:It doesn't hurt to add in a deeper, longer breath with each phrase. It also doesn't hurt to add some language to it. When I work one on one with clients, I will take their particular situation and I'll add some wording after each phrase. So I'm sorry for calling myself fat. Please forgive me for feeling like I'm just too fat, tired and ugly to do anything. Thank you for right now recognizing that I'm worth more than my thoughts are telling me. I love you and I deserve love and I'm worthy of love, no matter how my body is reacting to me right now. So if we're menopausal or perimenopausal or post, wherever we are, whatever the situation, we can kind of add a little bit more love to the words to apply to our specific situation.
Speaker 1:I really love that and I just think it's. I mean just talking about it and just talking with you right now. I mean it's very calming and we're in a society where we're like we need to get the answers quickly. I mean I right now know quite a few women who are just like desperate to like get weight off. I mean they can't get to this place yet you know, where they're just forgiving of themselves or just accepting that they're going through a change and it's all going to be okay and just having, you know, infusing some kindness and compassion and rather it's, you know, whatever diet of the moment is like a quick, fixed diet, but now it's also a lot of weight loss drug like Ozempic that I see women they're just out of. It's a desperation move and it's the opposite of this, but this feels very calming and nice and happy yeah from the calm place that we can actually make sustainable change.
Speaker 2:Because if we're in that desperate feeling of I just lose those 20 pounds, or even if it's five, and we're we're in tension about it right, we have tension and stress around it, well, you know, that's just creating more cortisol in the body, which is actually just holding onto the path. We, your body, your brain is like Nope, we need this. We can't change anything right now. So we've got to come back to, or at least try to practice coming back to, a place of peace, because it's in that's more neutral, calm state that our bodies will actually go oh, we're safe, all as well, we have enough, we can make changes, and in crisis we can't. We're not losing anything, except for, maybe, calm, focused thinking.
Speaker 2:So it's not a calm place that we can begin to be more rational about our bodies, and it all works together. So we're coming into peace, we're being more accepting, we're putting more attention on the health of our being than the weight of our body, and I think it's from that place. I picked up that weight plateau a couple of years ago and I was like what the heck man? I've never had a weight problem. I'm turning 49 this month and all of a sudden my body was just winging to this weight and I was like I don't understand what's happening.
Speaker 2:It used to be so easy for me to lose five pounds, so I tried. I tried working out really hard Like a whole year and nothing happened. And finally I was like, well, I guess I'm just gonna accept this new weight and this new being and in conjunction, so we can accept and then we can also try different things on. I'm going to listen to nutritionists, I'm going to learn about my body at this age and stage and what you know. I'll listen to like 10 different opinions and then pull what works for me into my situation. And so I tried a particular kind of diet I'm not promoting any and it worked for me.
Speaker 2:And as I cut out sugar, I felt better in my body. My joints didn't ache anymore, I had more energy, I was clearer thinking and and now like back into regular diet, everything in moderation. I find that even if I do go splurge at Starbucks, everything's cut in half, like cut the sugar pumps in half. It's even better that way, right? So we have to. This is why happiness is the practice, because we we develop so many different skills, and one of the skills that we develop in a practice of happiness Heather itself, trust, and we learn to tune into our body's own wisdom and the wisdom of whatever we believe is out there guiding us if anything. And once we do that, it's so much easier to care for ourselves from a place of love and peace, which is really important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, I mean, I think becoming really intuitive with yourself and trusting, like you said, is everything I think, and then, and then having something higher than you, you know, higher power source, right, whatever, whatever we call it is really important and it just helps us stay a little more calm. I mean, I know from the scientific side, you know, then we're, when we're not calm, when we're not more relaxed, our cortisol levels are up, we are in fight or flight, we are, you know, our metabolism, so everything like gets whacked out, you know, because we're like waiting for, you know, something and we're waiting for the danger, and so it's so important to stay calm, especially when we're in midlife. You know, sometimes we used to be able to get away with things right, but now you know it's, and if happiness is the goal and I think it's probably a goal from, I mean, who doesn't want to be happy, you know, feel content and happy and at peace, Then you know, so we really do need to practice this daily, and so I wanted to then just talk a little bit about this. You know your number six, which is purpose, and again we're talking in relationship to the women. I mainly see it always women in midlife and who feel lost, you know, suddenly they had purpose and then and I can relate to this, you know, I have three kids who are now all out of college which I can't believe and working and you know, and do not live at my house anymore.
Speaker 1:They come to visit, you know. So I, my identity as like that of like the mom you know, is I mean of course I'm still their mother, but but I've lost that, that piece of me. So, and some women are just have been stay at home moms, like you know, and and so they've, they really do feel a loss of identity. How do you work with that? Because that's hard, it's scary, when we're in our 50s, late 40s, 50s, to think like I have to reinvent myself now or like what am I doing the rest of my life. How do you work with that so people can just feel content and happy?
Speaker 2:One of the first that's actually where I start with every single client, wherever they are is we do a clarity process to get them really clear on what they want their life to look and feel like now, from wherever they're starting. And you're right for moms and parents in general, but specifically mothers we're so wrapped up in our kids that when they leave, if we haven't cultivated purpose and meaning for ourselves separate from them, we're like what now? I had my oldest go to college this last fall and she just came home yesterday. But for me I'm divorced. So my kids have been going back and forth between their dads and me every other week. So every other week I have very little moming to do and it's allowed me to really cultivate my own personal experience filled with purpose, because I've got friends, I've got my business, I've got my clients, I've got my partner, and then every other week I've got my kids. Eventually they're all going to grow up. Mine are all teenagers now, so they're on their way out of the house. My youngest is a freshman in high school and instead of waiting until he's grown and gone to go oh, what now? I've been working on the what now for years and it's OK if you haven't.
Speaker 2:So we start with asking ourselves, in shorter workshops, I'll ask just the question what makes you feel alive? What makes you feel alive? Because many of us, especially moms, have put aside our own passions, our own hobbies, our own personal joys for our kids and our families. And so this is an opportunity to tap back into, like, ok, before you had kids, what did you love to do? Did you love to sing? Did you love to dance? Did you love to paint? Did you love to work numbers in your head? Did you love to whatever? Did you love to talk to people? So could you now think of something that you could go do to cultivate that feeling of aliveness within you? Maybe it's volunteering, maybe it's a part-time job, Maybe it's going back to school, maybe it's knitting, it doesn't matter what it is, as long as it makes you feel alive.
Speaker 2:And then, for the clients that I work more long term with, we do a clarity process where I have them make a list of the 10 things that they want to be, do, feel and have in their lives, and they complete the sentence when my life is ideal, I am, and they fill in the blank, and that can be anything. I feel fit and healthy and energized in my body, just the way it is. It can be I have a deep connection with sorts. It can be I am in the soulmate relationship of my dreams. It can be that I feel supportive of my children. Even though they're grown up now and living their own lives, I still have this beautiful relationship with them. It can be anything.
Speaker 2:And so we narrow that list down to the top five, because the brain can only handle five to seven bits of information at any given time. And then I teach them how to actually lean into those five main things that make them feel alive. If they have written things that don't light them up, then I say, ok, start over, let's read you, because it should feel new to me, it should feel vibrant, you should feel like that bubble up of joy, of excitement, you should feel it's a point and it should feel really good. And so we get to that top five. And then I teach people how to align their lives with those things so that each day feels more joyful and fulfilling. And I promise, when we are happier overall, when we're experiencing more aliveness in our daily lives, all the rest gets easier. All the rest gets easier the weight, the fatigue, the body changes, the who knows, the aging partner who can't hear you anymore, the money you're putting away for college. And everything gets easier when we take care of the inner world within us and we're doing the things that help us feel good on a regular, daily basis.
Speaker 2:And this doesn't mean, heather, that we're always going to feel vibrant and alive, because that's not what authentic happiness is. The beauty of this human experience is that we get to experience everything Right. If we're willing and courageous enough to experience myriad emotional states, that's when we have access to the super awesome highs joys, passion, aliveness, happiness. And we will still experience the grief of our children going away, moving on living their lives, or the loss of a loved one, or the frustration I would like to use traffic circles as an example of frustration. We'll still get angry, we'll still get upset and we don't live there. We don't get stuck there. We move through the myriad emotions of the human experience with more ease and efficiency when we're practicing these tools and skills and habits of happiness.
Speaker 1:So just listening to you, I'm like, yes, I get it, I want that, everyone wants that. But I then was thinking some people and I'll just stick with women women in midlife are just used to being really critical with themselves. I mean, it's the only way they know how to communicate. I get this because I used to be that person much more years ago and then I really started practicing a lot more kindness and compassion with myself. I think we've talked about this. It's like a game changer. How do you stop that critical voice and how long do you work with people? How long does this take to suddenly become a happier person?
Speaker 2:Let's start with that question. So traditional wisdom says oh, it takes 21 days to form a habit. That's incorrect. Scientifically, the research shows that it takes closer to around 72 days to form a habit, so that it is in fact a habit and not just a new behavior. What I noticed, I used to work with clients for just one off, Like we'll spend a few hours together or you'll do a workshop with me.
Speaker 2:Then I was like that's not enough. They're having a good experience, but they're not creating sustaining change. And so then I started working with people for three months and what I noticed is great. Three months, 90 days gives them a pretty good foundation of the tools and habits of happiness. And then, after a couple of months of not working with me, they'd revert back to old habits and come back. So then I decided well, it's a six month minimum package now, one on one.
Speaker 2:Because what I see around that three month mark right about the time that those habits are getting solidified the subconscious mind goes hold on a second. What are you doing? Let's go back to the old way. And unless people are in this container of support and accountability, they're like, oh, you're right, this isn't comfortable, I don't like this change. Let me go back and do the old way. That's what I know, that's what I like, that's where I'm safe, that's where I'm comfortable. So now I require my one on one clients a six month package. And do you know that every one of them has renewed? I have never worked with a client for just six months.
Speaker 1:I'm sure somebody will be like I have six months, I have to. Can't you just give me the short version of how I get happy? I have commitment issues too, but I get it. I mean I think that these skills it's like a lifelong practice. I mean it's really because we could get so distracted with so much going on in our lives, in the world and it's so easy to revert back to what we were doing. So I think, yeah, that sounds like it makes a ton of sense to get that, because you need to get out of the habit of being self critical, of being hard on yourself, of just feeling like I don't have purpose or whatever. You know, whatever the downside of it is.
Speaker 2:Those critical thoughts are, and we definitely work a lot in that area and there are various specific tools. I take people through some inner critic work and you said how do we stop it? Well, we actually invoke a stop word. So we create a word or a phrase that works for each individual and we start interrupting the pattern of negative thinking, interrupting the pattern of critical thinking. And then because and most people might not know this either we can't just drop a bad habit, we have to replace a habit. So, because the mind otherwise is looking for that thing we've been doing, so we have to replace it. So we take the bad habit, the negative, critical thought, like I'm so fat and ugly, and we replace it with I am good enough just as I am, or I am willing to love myself just as I am. I'll try loving myself just as I am.
Speaker 2:Whatever, wherever you're at, I never subscribe to affirmations that feel like lies. We're going to find a little bit of truth and we're going to make it bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger as time goes on, so that you, if that is your desire, can get smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller. But especially, that inner critic gets quieter and quieter, and I can't say that it will ever fully go away. I've been doing this work for over 10 years. My inner critic still comes out to play sometimes and we're like, oh, you're no good at this, why are you bothering? And where my stop word used to be a little more aggressive, today it's more like I thank you, you're trying to do your job and I'm good I got this.
Speaker 1:I'm fine, we're fine, so it's nice to hear that you are also in a lifelong practice, right?
Speaker 2:Right, that long practice are the key words here. It is a lifelong practice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that doesn't mean that it has to. It's like overwhelming, like I'm never going to totally learn this. It just means that you need to always be reminded and I love what you just said about like you're not just dropping a habit, but you're replacing a habit. That reminds me kind of of like diet thinking. You know, like sticking going on to like some unrealistic diet rather than replacing like we want to change our food and our eating and everything, but we need to do it in a kind, loving and in a way that is proven to be working, not just some crazy, you know, unsustainable three week diet where we're losing 30 pounds in 30 days. Oh, exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so we're placing just making changes but in infusing good habits, I guess what I'm saying. So I've heard you say a couple of times that the research shows the research, that I love research, I am a big fan of research. I don't, like you know, when it comes to like diets and everything I'm like, show me the money. I mean like you, show me that the you know have this works and that's great, but I don't show me some fad diet that like goes nowhere. Who has influenced you? I mean, tell me, tell me a little bit more about just the research when you say that yeah, so the you know the Berkeley school that they do a lot of happiness research.
Speaker 2:I have read so many books. This is one of my favorites and it's a new one the good life. This is the longest study on happiness ever done and that just came out this earlier this year on the scientific study of happiness, and they're the ones who coined the term social fitness. So it's just a lot of study of positive psychology, which I study for fun. I'm a nerd like that and I too love research. I love to have a study that's backed up. You know I love to be able to cite resources or somewhere on my computer. And then I studied with Marcy Shymoff who wrote the book Happy for no Reason. So she is one of my mentors who trained me and that's where I got that definition and interstate of peace and well-being that doesn't depend on happiness and it's just, at least for now, my favorite definition of happiness ever because it's so soft and liberating and authentic and achievable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know that there's a lot of research right now on positive psychology and happiness, and I'm forgetting the name of the woman from Yale who created the happiness course. I'm sure you know of this and I know it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2:We're both working with these menopausal brains, and I can't remember her name right now, but I can see her logo yes, so I know that that's where I think I started.
Speaker 1:I remember when she that course first came out and that sort of you know, just had the idea of happiness. And well, not the idea, but because we already know about happiness, but just the it brought it, I think, into more of the mainstream way to just think about how to.
Speaker 2:And so you know I take all of that. But it's also very much my own life experience of not feeling happy at a point in my life, feeling pretty freaking, miserable, and finding my way back to the woman I remembered from before. I went through lots of hardships, each piece I've read so many books involved, so many teachers and ultimately we each have a journey to take back to ourselves and if we're not happy currently, we probably can remember a time when we were. That's why I ask that question what makes you feel alive? Because we can tap back into before. Life weighed us down, maybe figuratively, maybe literally, and we get to liberate the essence of who we are, to create and cultivate our own happiness. And it looks different for everybody and we can follow a similar journey to get there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that sounds like good next steps. So I have just a final question, because right now what I'm hearing just out in the world is people are really stressed out about it. The warren is real Things. I mean, it's really consuming people a lot. So how do we try to stay positive when just awful things are happening?
Speaker 2:You don't have to try to stay positive. I've said it a few times you get to feel your feelings and you don't want to stay there if they're lower, more depleting emotions, that overwhelming sadness. So, number one turn off the TV, turn off the news, turn it off. You don't have to know everything that's happening all over the world every minute If you want to be informed. Good, and give yourself a limit of time 15 minutes a day you listen to your preferred news provider, or 15 minutes a day you read the news. I prefer reading to hearing or watching, because we can keep our minds cleaner when we're the ones creating the images. So if you're reading, maybe you just see the words, maybe you create images in your mind. That's what I do when I read, but it's not ever going to be as destructive as what you are going to see on the television. So, care, take what gets into your brain, because it all gets into there. Whatever you're watching, listening to, reading, it's affecting you. So we want to really be mindful just like we are with our diet of the mental diet, what's coming into our brain. So please, please, please, turn off the news. Do not turn it on in the first 30 minutes of your day, or the last, I would say, two hours of your day.
Speaker 2:The first 30 minutes of your day can set the tone for your entire day. And here's another little research. Fun fact is, people who are exposed to something very negative, like the war, in the first 30 minutes of their day report a lower mood up to 12 hours later. So it is literally so that first 30 minutes of your day make it sacred. Choose what you're going to say to yourself when you put your feet on the floor first thing in the morning. Choose how you're going to caretake yourself first thing in the day. Don't scroll with your coffee journal, with your coffee. Start with a breath, work a meditation. That ho-op-on-op-ono, I'm sorry, please forgive me. Wake up. That day you get to create a sacred ritual that supports you instead of sabotages your entire day. Really, really, really, really be mindful of your news intake. That is my number one happiness rule.
Speaker 1:And I love that. You know the self-care practice in the morning for the first 30 minutes. I do that myself and it's just a nice way to ease in the day, and I have officially turned the TV off. I don't watch news at all anymore, I mean, unless I'm watching the weather or something, because it's just crazy making.
Speaker 2:It is and we're going to see it. It's pretty hard to stay completely in a closet of knowing that, Of course yeah, you're going to see it. You're going to turn it on the radio. You're going to hear something. You're going to open your phone. You're going to see something. So the more that we can control that, the happier we will eventually be Well.
Speaker 1:Tamara, thank you so much. This has been a fantastic conversation and I think that I've gone from you know you hear sometimes in the world, like, just be happy, just be. You know, like and that's so much easier said than done I mean you can't just turn on like the happiness switch. It sounds like I'm talking to you. You need skills and habits and tools and you certainly have that and you've done tons of research and you know and know the science behind how to get happy. So thank you so much for sharing that. And how can people get in touch with you?
Speaker 2:Thank you. It's been such a pleasure to be here and, of course, this is my favorite topic. People can reach out to me through my website, alifeulovenowcom. I have a blog. I share some videos. I all my upcoming courses or group programs are there. I'm also most active on Facebook and Instagram and my name there's, I think, one other Tamerzoner in the world and she's Hispanic and all her stuff will be in Spanish. So that's not me, Okay.
Speaker 2:And I have a private Facebook group where I'm consistently sharing, you know, happiness tips and a little bit of research and just encouragement to members to go a little bit deeper in their journey of self, and that is called create a life you love now, and I would love to see people there too.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, I will definitely put all of those links in the show notes so people can access it that way too. So thank you so much. This has been really a insightful conversation.
Speaker 2:Thank you, we get us there, bye.