The Happiness Response

In this podcast we look at how to respond positively to the negative or unexpected events in our lives.

Transcript

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

I don't know about you,

But life hasn't always gone the way that I predicted it would.

And because of that,

I've needed to adjust to life and its changes.

Well,

In today's episode,

We're going to look at how to adjust in ways that work for us versus often what we do is adjust in ways that don't work well for us.

And I want to start with a story about myself.

When I was a kid,

I grew up in Iowa,

And my family did pretty well for Iowa standards.

I mean,

We weren't wealthy remotely,

But my dad was able to take off about a month every year for vacations.

And we did have a decent home,

And we lived pretty well,

I would say.

He had the same job that entire time growing up,

Which he began working at while I was in college,

And he stayed into it all the way until I was 14 years old.

Well,

In the summer,

When I was 14,

He had a meeting all the way in Omaha with his home office,

And I went with them.

My father and I had a really good relationship.

We were close.

We did a lot of things together,

And we just enjoyed each other's company.

Well,

When he came back from the office,

I could tell something was wrong,

And he told me he'd lost his job.

I could tell it really affected him in a negative way.

But at this point,

I didn't realize how big an impact it was going to have on him,

Which I discovered later.

It started pretty quickly.

My happy,

Fun-loving father became someone who was depressed.

He'd never really drank much prior to this,

But he started drinking more.

And I would say it took him at least eight years to come out of it.

Eight years of trying to figure out what he wanted to do,

What his purpose in life was now,

Because right now,

For the next eight years,

He had kind of given up.

And it was both sad and frightening for me to see,

Because not only did I feel like I lost my father,

I felt like I lost a dear friend.

Thankfully,

He was able to come out of it and is actually alive even to this day and doing well.

But what I want to talk about today is his response and how it impacted me and what I learned along the way.

What I noticed was he had a change in his life,

A big one,

Where he lost his job,

And he basically for eight years gave up and didn't try anymore.

He drank more.

He just got depressed and sat around a lot.

It was a very sad time for me,

But one that also motivated me to say,

This is not going to happen to me.

Now,

With time,

I took it too far.

I worked too hard.

I made sure that something like this could never happen to me.

But the truth is,

In life,

Things like this happen,

And they happen to all of us,

Or they can.

They can happen to all of us.

And what I realized,

There was a lot of fear in me,

Fear that I might do the same thing my father had done.

So I spent a lot of energy making sure that wasn't going to happen.

But all that effort and all that energy was exhausting me.

And then one day I had an insight.

It was a beautiful insight that really changed my life and allowed me to relax and flow more with life instead of fighting life.

Because of course there had been bumps along the way for me too,

As there are for many of us.

But what I realized was,

I am not my father.

I don't have to do what he does.

I don't need to turn towards alcohol or any other substances when things go awry.

That I can make a different choice when events happen.

And I was making different choices.

I was definitely putting things in place,

Which when things didn't go the way I wanted,

Because things sometimes didn't,

I just kept pushing forward and kept doing what I loved.

And didn't expect things to go a certain way all the time.

I was preparing myself for change.

And that preparation created freedom in me.

I realized that my dad had made choices,

But I didn't need to make the same choices.

If I made different choices,

I would have a different response.

Even though the same events could happen to me,

And sometimes along the way there were changes that were very difficult,

But I responded in a different way.

I kept going.

I didn't ever give up.

I never turned towards booze or substances to deal with the pain.

And I also really worked on the attachment to what I did,

My career.

Even though I love what I do and have along the way,

I realized I am not that.

So if that changes,

Which someday it may,

I mean at some point I may decide I'm done doing what I do and retire.

I don't know.

I'm not planning on it,

But I might.

And I realize though that I'm not identified with what I do or the things that I have at all.

And what that does is that creates great freedom because then there's no fear.

What's the fear to lose?

And I really saw this impact me in a positive way in 08.

That's when the housing and stock market crashed here in the United States and I think around the world.

And it impacted me to my practice had gotten slower.

I was speaking less and I could definitely see that there were changes happening in my life.

But I responded in ways that grew back up again so that I could do well even with all these changes happen in the world.

And it wasn't even a scary time for me.

It was an exciting time because now I could try new ventures that I was really excited about.

So here's the important lesson for today.

Yes,

Events are going to happen and they can be quite tragic at the time.

But what really matters,

What at its core is the most important thing we have to think about is our response.

We have to think about how we going to respond to this negative event.

Are we going to respond in ways that help us grow,

Learn from it,

Do better in life?

Or are we going to throw in the towel,

Give up and just be sad or depressed?

It is a choice.

It is always a choice.

And whichever choice we make will have consequences.

It will.

So we have to decide.

Do I want something beautiful to come from this?

Or do I want to give up,

Throw in the towel and turn towards some addiction?

Because that's what lots of people do nowadays and throughout history.

When tough times come,

They just give up.

And that,

I'm arguing,

Is a choice.

We can have,

As you know,

I so often say,

Truly beautiful lives.

But we have to choose to.

We have to do certain things to make sure our lives go well.

Giving up,

Turning towards any addiction,

Whether it's food,

Whether it's alcohol,

Drugs,

Prescription drugs,

Whatever it may be.

Even work can be an addiction.

Even thrills can be an addiction.

But if we are turning towards them,

Instead of learning,

Growing and improving our lives,

They will have consequences,

Negative ones.

So what we can do is say,

I get it.

I may not like what's happening right now.

It may not even seem fair.

Like,

Sure,

It didn't seem fair for my father when he lost his job because he was doing a very good job at his work.

But life doesn't always give us what seems,

In quotes,

Fair.

But it is fair in the sense that what is fair is that we get to choose how we get to respond to things.

I know,

Sometimes they're pretty tough.

We get diagnosed with cancer.

We're going through a divorce.

We lose our job.

On and on it can go.

But those things aren't nearly as important as our response.

Because our response is the one that's going to really determine how it turns out in the long run.

I know in the current situation it can be quite painful.

But in the long run,

It's all about our response.

Life sometimes throws us some really big things.

You may right now be listening to this podcast because you're wanting help with your life event that's going on right now.

And I know it matters.

I know we need to feel it.

But what we need to think about in the long run,

How are we going to respond to this event so it makes our life better?

Our lives can always get better until the day we die.

So we ask ourselves,

OK,

I get it.

This is tough.

But I'm going to take this and turn it into something beautiful because we can.

It's a choice.

It's a lot of work.

Or we cannot do that.

A lot of people don't do that because the other way seems easier in the short run.

But in the long run,

It's way better for us to say,

I get it.

This is not what I expected.

This is not what I wanted.

But I'm going to make this work.

I'm going to turn this into something that is good for my life,

That I learn from,

That I grow from,

And that I keep growing from no matter what.

So I want to end with a couple of real practical things we can do.

So let's say,

For example,

Right now you had an event happen in your life that clearly is negatively impacting you.

Maybe it happened a month ago.

Maybe it happened yesterday.

Or maybe you've been dealing with it for eight years like my father did.

So then what we do is we ask ourselves,

OK,

I get it.

This is tough.

But the choices I've been making are not helping.

I want to really get better.

So I need you today because today is a new day.

Begin to make different choices.

We kind of know what they are.

We know that obviously turning towards addictions is not ever going to be a good choice.

That's not something we need to do.

But we may right now be pretty stuck.

So think of it this way.

Think of it as if metaphorically,

We're now a 300 pound couch potato,

But we want to get in shape.

Well,

We're not going to go off and run a marathon right away.

That would not be very healthy.

But what we could do is start exercising a little bit,

Start eating better.

And if we keep improving that every day with time,

We will become that marathon runner.

It's the same way with what's happened to us.

Whatever that negative event is that we're dealing with right now,

We need to start making different choices.

And those different choices have different consequences.

And when we make them a little bit every day with time,

That turns into a complete change of who we are.

And if we keep making different choices that are healthy with time,

We will heal from these events,

Move on and learn to do well in life no matter what.

The second thing we can do is be more mentally prepared for these negative events.

They may never come.

But if we're prepared for them,

We're going to deal with them a lot better.

And the biggest way to prepare for them is to ask ourselves,

Well,

What am I attached to?

What do I believe has to happen and keep happening?

Or I'm going to suffer.

And whatever that is,

We have to let go of that.

Because hanging on to things and saying things have to turn out a certain way is the path to suffering.

If instead we say,

I get it,

There's no guarantees in life,

I'll do my best.

But things like divorce,

I mean,

If half marriages end in divorce,

I should probably think that that might happen to me.

I mean,

We're all going to die.

So that one should be something that we say,

OK,

I get it.

I'm going to die.

Most of us before we die started having health problems.

So that's one we should prepare for and be OK with.

I mean,

The list can go on and on.

It's amazing what our minds can attach to and say,

This shouldn't happen.

This better not happen or I'm going to suffer.

But anything we add to that list to say this shouldn't happen is a potential threat.

And it isn't so much that we have to know all the threats.

What's important is we have to decide there is no guarantees in life.

Whatever is going well today may not be going the same way tomorrow.

But if we get that that's how life works,

We just need to live really well in the present moment and deal with things when they come up and never give up.

No matter how far down the ladder we may seemingly go,

We're going to just keep working on finding happiness,

Finding peace in our lives.

No matter what,

Then nothing can get us and we're going to be OK because we don't expect things to go a certain way.

We flow with life instead of fighting life,

Because when we fight life,

We do suffer.

At its core,

One of the key lessons of this podcast is to live a fearless life.

We do not need to be afraid of anything.

And if there are fears,

We need to address them and make them get quieter so that we are each day moving in the direction of being fearless.

It is a possibility for any of us as long as we keep working at it.

And that's what this podcast is about.

It's teaching us how to live that fearless life.

No matter what we can do it,

We will do it if we work towards it and knowing that no matter what we can truly have beautiful lives.

If we work at it is a goal worth achieving.

And more importantly,

It's a goal that we need to live day by day.

And if we do that,

That culminates into a beautiful life.

Thank you for joining me on the happiness podcast.

If you want to learn more about the world of happiness,

Please go to www.

Happinesspodcast.

Org.

That's happinesspodcast.

Org.

And if you are enjoying this podcast,

Reviews are awesome.

Until next time,

Accept what is,

Love what is.

Reviews

So helpful as always, thank you Dr Puff 💜x

I like Dr. Puff..he seems authentic and gives the best tools for living a wonderful life. Thank you.

Great wisdom here. Thank you

All so true. Loved this.

This podcast came to me at the perfect time. It’s exactly what I needed to be reminded of right now. Thank you! 💛

Such wise and comforting words. I'll most definitely be subscribing to this podcast. Thank you.

Very helpful. Thank you🙏🏻

Really needed this today, thank you very much for the guidance. Self-pity is my downfall and that brings negativity and sometimes jealousy when things don't happen the way I would like them to be. Going to come back and visit this as a reminder. FLOW WITH LIFE. ✨

Very inspirational

Thank you for your practical observations on life and the reminder to reach for joy!

Thank you for the gentle reminder. 💗

Change your response, or even better: change your perception, as my dear teacher says. View things differently and inner (and even outer) circumstances will appear differently to us.
Be like the Buddha, and turn the arrows of life into flowers.🌸🌼🌻🌹🏵
Thank you so much for reminding me, us! 🙏

You have a very good voice to listen to. Your message was simple and uplifting. Thanks!

Clear, concise, well stated.

Great podcast and very relevant to me as I unexpectedly lost my job after 14 years.

Very nice talk. Not very deep but good message. Everything is a choice.
🐾💐🦋💖🙏🏼

Just what I needed to hear! Thank you

Very insightful and practical. Thanks!