Happy For No Reason

Marci Shimoff is a celebrated transformational leader and a #1 New York Times bestselling author. In addition to authoring the worldwide bestseller Happy for No Reason, she is the co-author of six of the top-selling titles in the Chicken Soup for the Soul series and a featured teacher in the international movie and book sensation The Secret. President and co-founder of The Esteem Group, Marci delivers keynote addresses and seminars to corporations, women’s associations, and professional and non-professionals.

Transcript

Hello,

Hello,

USU listeners.

I'm so honored to be here with you.

Really grateful.

I know there's so many things you could be doing and really,

Really appreciative of your time.

You are going to love this interview.

Our guest today is someone that I have really just adored and loved from afar,

And I'm so excited to introduce you to Marcia Shamoff and for you to get to know her.

It's going to be an extraordinary conversation,

So sit back,

Enjoy.

And as you know,

I always have show notes,

So no need to do anything but just to sit back and be present.

Marcia Shamoff is a number one New York Times bestseller,

Author,

And world-renowned transformational teacher and an expert on happiness,

Success,

And unconditional love.

Her books include The International Bestsellers,

Happy for No Reason,

And Love for No Reason.

Marcia is also the woman's face of the biggest self-help book phenomenon in history as co-author of six books in the chicken soup for the Women's Soul series.

With total book sales of more than 16 million copies worldwide in 33 languages,

Marcia is one of the best-selling female nonfiction authors of all time.

Marcia is also a feature teacher in the international film and book sensation The Secret and the host of the PBS TV show called Happy for No Reason.

She narrated the award-winning movie called Happy.

Marcia delivers keynote addresses and seminars on happiness,

Success,

Empowerment,

And unconditional love to Fortune 500 companies,

Professional and nonprofit organizations,

Women's associations,

And audiences around the world.

Marcia is currently leading a one-year mentoring program called Your Year of Miracles.

Her opening seminar has been heard by more than 200,

000 people.

Marcia also earned her MBA from UCLA and holds an advanced certificate as a stress management consultant.

She is a founding member and on the board of directors at the Transformational Leadership Council,

A group of 100 top transformational leaders.

Through her books and her presentations,

Marcia's message has touched the hearts and rekindled the spirits of millions of people throughout the world.

She is dedicated to helping people live more empowered,

Joyful lives.

Marcia,

I am so honored and excited to have you here.

Thank you so much for being with us today.

It's great to be here with you today,

Julie.

I'm really looking forward to our conversation.

Me too.

Well,

I was saying before we started recording,

You just have this effervescent,

Beautiful energy and spirit that had me feel like I've known you for years.

I really think this topic,

Happy for no reason,

Especially right now when I think a lot of people are grasping for reasons to feel happy.

My intuition is saying,

Let's dive in there because I feel like there's probably less of a happiness quotient maybe now than there was six months ago.

And just,

We'd love to hear your wisdom thoughts and what you teach about how to be happy.

Yeah.

So Julie,

First of all,

I felt the same kindred spirit with you and you are beaming light.

So I'm really,

Really delighted to connect with you.

And this topic of happy for no reason,

People are always going,

Well,

How can you possibly be happy now?

Isn't that awful,

Actually awful to be happy now?

And here's what I mean by happy for no reason.

I don't mean that you're walking around 24 seven with a silly grin on your face and you're in some Pollyanna state of denial.

I do not mean you're in spiritual bypass.

I don't mean that you're aware,

You know what's going on.

And even in the midst of whatever's going on,

You have an interstate of peace and wellbeing that doesn't depend on your circumstances.

That's my definition of happy for no reason is an interstate of peace and wellbeing that doesn't depend on your circumstances.

That doesn't mean you're not going to feel upset with what may be going on in the world.

It doesn't mean you're not going to feel grief.

If somebody dies or you're not going to feel anger.

Yes,

You may feel all of those things,

But,

But amidst those,

There is this backdrop and that backdrop of happiness,

Of peace and wellbeing allows you to be more creative and more resilient and actually deal with the challenges that life gives us.

And,

You know,

I,

I'm going to go on a limb here and just say,

I,

I don't think it's an accident that we're here on the planet.

Now,

I actually think our souls shows this time to be here.

We said,

Sign me up.

I'm in.

And if you're listening to this,

It means that your soul is going,

Okay,

I'm ready and get me even more ready for,

For you know,

So that I can live a great life even in the midst of all this.

And then I can bring that to the world.

Oh,

Okay.

So I got chills when you said that I,

I am so with you on that.

Is that,

That feeling,

Which is by the way,

So much more empowering than like,

What was I thinking?

Right,

Right,

Right.

What the heck was I,

I made that soul contract.

Did I really know?

But I love that.

I love that.

I actually felt that when things shut down,

I think it was in the middle of March and I was like,

Okay,

This is what we're here for.

And I love your definition.

It's not about spiritual bypassing.

I think this is really important for those of you lovely souls listening.

This is not about being Pollyanna or not feeling,

But I love what you said.

It's that inner state of peace and wellbeing.

It just,

It doesn't depend on circumstances.

It's really powerful.

Yeah.

And you know,

It's interesting,

Julie,

Because most of us have been trained to base our happiness on our circumstances.

Yeah.

No,

We grew up with this myth of more,

The more I have the happier I'll be.

And what we can see is that all of the gathering of things that we have gathered really didn't get us where we wanted to go anyway.

I mean,

We as a society have more,

You know,

Up until COVID hit,

We had more than we've ever had in history and we were still unhappier than ever.

So it's not like that old thing worked.

And I think what's happening now is we're in this major reset and now we're going,

Okay,

So that kind of happiness,

Chasing after happiness didn't work.

What do I do now?

So that is the perfect question.

I was,

That I just exactly what I was thinking to ask you,

Because I can sometimes hear,

You know,

It's like someone listening is like,

Okay,

So how do we stay happy when we cannot change what's going on around us?

How do we honestly find that peace and contentment and grounding when things do not feel super grounded and super peaceful?

Such a great question.

And so first let me share with you one piece of research.

I'm not going to share a lot of research,

But one piece of research that totally made the difference for me when I heard this,

We all have a happiness set point and it's like a thermostat setting.

And no matter what happens to us,

Whether it's good or bad,

We will tend to return to our set point,

Our thermostat setting,

Unless we do something consciously to change it.

This is why people who win the lottery,

You know,

You think,

Oh,

All I have to do is win the lottery and I'd be happy.

Yeah,

They're happier for a little while,

A couple months within a year,

They're back to their original happiness set point.

Same is true of people who go through challenges.

So maybe you're going through a big challenge during COVID,

You know,

And it is going to affect your happiness set point some,

But you will return to your regular happiness set point generally within months or up to a year.

So the set point is the key.

And here's how the set point is determined.

Your happiness set point is 50% genetic.

You're born with it.

I didn't happen to be born,

I was born depressed.

So I was not born with those good genes.

And then so 50% is genetic,

Only 10% is our circumstances.

Notice that's what everybody's running after,

To try to fix to be happier.

It's only 10% of the whole equation.

The other 40% is our habits of thoughts and behavior.

And that's what we can do something about to raise our happiness set point.

Now I'm going to take it a step further and say that that 50% that was genetic that you think,

Oh,

Well,

It's just my genes,

I'm doomed.

Scientists in the field of epigenetics,

Like Dr.

Bruce Lipton,

Who wrote the biology of belief,

They say that our genes can be changed when our habits change.

What that means is that up to 90% of our happiness set point can be influenced or changed by changing our habits.

That's phenomenal.

I mean,

Like for somebody like me who grew up depressed,

That is great news.

In fact,

That's what inspired me to do all this work is that I was completely depressed and I was born that way,

Even though I had great circumstances.

I just had this dark cloud around me and I thought,

I'm going to go,

I'm going to,

I'll just tell a little of my story.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Please.

I was going to say,

Can you tell us like how you went from there to now working around happiness?

Well,

I,

My solution in my teen years for getting happier was sugar.

I became a sugar addict.

I was probably 35 pounds overweight in high school.

So that was not fun.

And so when I was in my twenties,

I thought,

Okay,

I'm going to get this happiness thing under control.

And I set five goals for myself and I thought,

Once I get those five goals,

That's it.

That's all I need to be happy.

And I'll share with you what they are because I think a lot of people can relate.

I wanted to have a great career helping people.

I wanted to have a wonderful husband or life partner,

Fabulous friends,

A comfortable home.

And the fifth was the equivalent of Halle Berry's body.

I got four out of the five.

I do not have Halle Berry's body,

But I have a healthy body for which I'm very grateful.

And so I worked really hard to get all the ducks in a row and I had a turning point moment in 1998.

I had three books in the top five on the New York Times bestseller list at the same time,

Same week.

I had everything else on that list was working.

And I had just finished giving a speech to 8,

000 women and had autographed 5,

432 books.

I felt like an author rock star.

And I remember after signing that last book,

I went up to my hotel room,

Which was the penthouse suite that my client had gotten for me.

And I walked over to the windows,

Overlooking Lake Michigan,

Beautiful view in Chicago.

And I turned around and I fell onto the bed and I burst into tears.

And I burst into tears because I realized I did everything I thought I needed to do to be happy.

And here I'm still not,

I still have that kind of empty hole inside and this isn't working.

I can't fool myself into thinking that just that next goal,

Just that next thing is going to do it.

So I dove headfirst into the study of happiness.

And unfortunately,

I was in a position to do the research.

I interviewed all the top researchers and I interviewed hundreds at this point of unconditionally happy people.

And I found that the only difference between them and everybody else is that they had different habits and I started practicing what they were doing.

And it worked.

If you were giving me a grade back then,

I'd have a grade of D plus in happiness.

I was almost failing the happiness test.

And now I'd say I am a solid A.

Now that doesn't mean that I am not a work in progress because I am.

But I changed the habits and my life changed.

So I now know this is possible for anybody.

Wherever you are,

You could already be really happy.

You can still raise your set point,

But you could also be depressed as I was and still raise it.

Okay.

First of all,

Thank you for sharing that story because on the outside,

It would look like,

Of course she's happy.

I mean,

To have three,

I'm still taking in the three bestselling books at the same time and the 5,

432,

Whatever the number.

But it was really,

It touched me when you said you were in your room and you just,

You fell back crying and that there was still something not there.

And I think this is,

I appreciate your vulnerability and your just beautiful open sharing because I know there are others that feel that way.

And it's so funny.

We just had Dr.

Bruce Lipton on the show just literally talking about this.

So you guys are perfectly aligned.

I love Bruce.

He's wonderful.

Sweetheart talking about the biology belief in these habits.

And we got into some,

But it's like the perfect,

I'm just like,

Thank you Divine for bringing both of you together because I would love to talk about,

I can just hear,

Okay,

So what are the habits?

Like what are the habits that changed you?

Would love to know.

And really I'm going to ask you if you're listening,

Listen and lean into this because what Marcie's saying,

You're hearing it now again,

You can change this.

This is changeable.

And I love your story that you were depressed and that you've shifted and now have an A in happiness.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you're a day and always working on it.

So there are 21 main habits that I found that happy people practice.

And I saw that they fall into seven main categories.

And what I'm going to do is I'm going to share with you these seven main categories.

And I want you as I'm talking to be listening for where am I the weakest?

Because the reality is that we're all strong and certain of these areas,

Weaker in other areas and kind of in the middle on the others.

Find where you're the weakest and start there because that's where you're going to have the greatest growth.

So Julie,

When I'm through with this,

I'm going to of course ask you where you're the weakest.

All right.

I'll share where I have been the weakest historically.

So I know people have a hard time remembering seven of anything.

So I created a metaphor to make it easier to remember.

And the metaphor is called building your inner home for happiness.

And a home has seven main components.

So just picture this.

It's got a foundation.

It's got four corner pillars.

It's got a roof.

And it's got a garden.

And here's how this relates to the seven main areas for happiness.

The foundation is about taking responsibility for your life and for your happiness.

It's about waking up from the myth that you're going to get it from something else.

You know,

I'm going to be happy when I,

It's the when I,

I'll be happy when I have more money.

I'll be happy when I get a better job.

I'll be happy when I get married.

I'll be happy when I get divorced or the ever popular.

I'll be happy when I lose 20 pounds.

So it's taking back that and going,

No,

No,

I have a responsibility right now to show up for myself in a,

In a way that creates happiness.

It's about being a victor in life and not a victim.

And the victim behaviors are blaming,

Shaming,

Which means blaming yourself and complaining.

So if you find yourself in any of those behaviors,

Then you know,

That's a step for you to take responsibility for your happiness.

Then there's the four corner pillars and they're ones I know you've heard before,

But,

But we look at them from the vantage point of happiness and they are the mind,

The heart,

The body and the spirit.

The mind has to do with your thinking.

Do your thoughts,

Rob,

Your happiness or contribute to your happiness,

Your heart?

Do you live with an open heart?

There is nobody I've ever met.

Who's deeply happy and closedhearted.

You know,

Do you have gratitude?

Do you have love?

Do you have,

Do you live with forgiveness?

Do you live with generosity and loving kindness?

So that's the second,

That's the second pillar.

Then there's the pillar of the body.

The body is,

Do you actually have the biochemistry of happiness?

Do you have enough endorphins and serotonin and dopamine and,

And you know,

All the good juicy chemicals,

Oxytocin.

And by the way,

I'll just tell you right now,

That's where I was the weakest.

That was my Achilles heel my entire life.

I did not have the bio,

You know,

The,

The,

The biochemistry of happiness.

Yeah.

And then there's the last pillar is the soul.

And that has to do with how connected you are to the greater energy of the universe.

I don't care what you call it,

Whether it's God or the divine or nature or whatever,

Doesn't matter.

But it's that,

Are you plugged in?

And then finally,

And then there's the roof of your home for happiness.

And the roof is your purpose or passion in life.

Are you living an inspired life?

Do you wake up and go,

I'm here doing what it is I was intended to be doing.

And then finally,

There's the garden.

And the garden has to do with who you're surrounded with,

Who you're surrounded by.

Do you have a lot of toxic people in your life?

I call them the weeds of the garden.

Or do you have a lot of roses and gardenias,

People who are supporting you in living a happier life?

So looking at those seven areas,

Find your weakest area,

Your Achilles heel.

And I want everybody who's listening to do that.

And Julie,

You're on the spot.

Tell me.

Well,

I was thinking,

I'm like,

All right,

Let's get all written down.

I'll put them in the show notes.

You know what I think for me,

Honestly,

Is probably the mind,

My thoughts.

And I will say I have been meditating and I've started a new type of meditation twice a day right now because I'm seeing I think I need it.

But my thoughts can get,

They can just,

They're always going.

And I think I can be really hard on myself and feel like I should have been here or just,

I don't know.

I don't know if that sounds like the mind to me.

That is the mind,

Julie.

And I have to tell you,

That is the most popular of all of them.

Oh,

Is it?

All right.

I'm blushing.

That's,

You're in the exact sweet spot.

And in fact,

That's where people get the most messed up.

I'd say the mind and the body.

Those are the two places where we can,

But other people have other areas,

But those are it.

So I want to give you a couple of tips for you,

For the mind.

And then,

And maybe we'll even do an exercise or two.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay,

Good.

I would love it.

All right.

So the mind,

The average person has 60,

000 thoughts a day.

And for the average person,

80% of those are negative.

This is called the negativity bias.

And if you find yourself getting stuck in the negative all day long,

The first thing I want you to do is not get mad at yourself and blame yourself for doing it because you're just adding insult to injury.

The reality is we inherited this tendency,

This negativity bias from our cavemen ancestors who needed to have that in order to survive.

They needed to notice all the negatives.

We do not live in that kind of a state anymore and we haven't adapted.

And what there's an analogy I love to use from my friend Rick Hansen,

Who is a great happiness expert.

You're nodding as though you know Rick Hansen's work.

He's wonderful.

And he says,

Our minds are like Velcro for the negative.

The negative just sticks to us.

And they're like Teflon for the positive,

The positive slide off.

And I'll give you an example of this.

So Julie,

If you get 10 compliments in a day and one criticism,

What do you tend to remember?

What I could do better?

Yeah,

That criticism.

You're thinking about that criticism.

What's that criticism?

Most people get stuck in the criticism.

And they actually,

The what could I do better is a really productive response to that.

Where most people get stuck is they get stuck in that criticism over and over in their mind.

I can't believe I did that.

I'm so bad.

You know,

They keep in the critical mode.

So what we want to do is we want to reverse this.

We want to create new neural pathways in the brain for the positive.

And you know,

Where the positive sticks to us and the negatives slide off of us.

So I'm going to give you a very simple tool,

Technique for doing that.

And this is scientifically based.

It's only three steps.

Number one,

Be on the lookout for the good.

Pretend you're a detective.

And you're looking for that good every day.

One of the women I interviewed for happy for no reason said that she is,

She pretends that she's the Academy Awards Committee.

And her job is to give out five Academy Awards every day.

So she's on the lookout,

Where can I give an Academy Award today,

She sees a woman walking down the street with her dog.

And she goes,

Oh,

My God,

That dog gets the cutest dog of the day award.

And so be on the lookout.

If you've got kids make this a game with your kids.

It's a really cool little game.

So your job is to give out five Academy Awards every day.

That's step number one.

Step number two,

Savor the good for at least 20 seconds.

According to the research,

That's how long it takes for the good to actually settle in to start creating new neural pathways in the brain.

Nowhere near as long for the negative.

The positive takes time to really settle in.

So if you're looking at a beautiful sunset,

Don't just go,

Oh,

That's a beautiful sunset and and walk away.

Take it in for 20 seconds.

If you see that cute little fluffy white dog,

Don't just go there's a cute dog.

Like really walk up to the owner and say that,

You know,

I give out Academy Awards every day and your dog gets the Academy Award of the day.

You know,

That allows you the 20 seconds to take it in.

That's called savoring.

Savoring the good.

And then the third step is to go for a three to one ratio.

Meaning for every negative that you have,

You have three positives to counter counteract it.

Awesome.

I'm writing this as quick as possible.

This so I love this.

I'm already like,

Oh,

Okay,

So that that if it's okay to share because I'm like,

Go for it.

And it's really interesting.

I'm assuming I'm not alone.

If you're out there listening,

I'm guessing you might if the mind is one of the most you see that most often,

Then I know I'm not alone here.

Well,

It's interesting because savoring the good for 20 seconds.

So that's something I'm like,

Oh,

I don't do that.

Like something great happens.

I'm excited.

And then I have a habit of okay,

What else do I need to be doing?

Or where else can I it's constantly like,

I should be doing this and I could be learning this and I forgot that,

You know,

And I just that savoring is that really hit me like that is powerful.

And I love,

Love,

Love.

I love looking out for the good,

But the three to one really being it's like,

You know,

I could even even the help if I get a criticism,

How can I learn from this?

That is my typical response.

But what I could do mercy is get a little obsessive about that.

And getting into the Okay,

How do I learn from this?

How do I become better?

How do I and that becomes honestly not that great either.

Because then there's an obsession.

Yeah,

It's always about I've got to get better.

I've got to get better.

I've got it rather than all as well in the universe right now.

Yeah,

Everything is exactly as it should be.

Let's just like be in this right now and enjoy it.

Because when you're not,

When you're thinking about what's next,

What's next,

What's next?

How can I be better?

Yeah,

You're not present.

You're not present.

You know,

It's the whole power of now and the being present to what is Yeah.

And there's one really simple thing that you can do that people have a hard time doing.

And that is,

You can actually sit for three minutes.

And just look outside,

Look at nature.

Or inside if you look outside,

And there's not nature,

Look inside at some flowers or you know,

A plant or something.

And just be with that experience of nature for two or three minutes,

What that does is it increases your serotonin.

And serotonin is one of the key happiness chemicals.

And and but but we have to take things in to really allow the serotonin to be built.

I feel like just had a so one of the reasons I'm going to be honest,

I love doing this podcast is hopefully it's helping many,

Many,

Many human beings,

Soul sisters,

So family members out there.

And I must say,

I just had this like,

Like,

I got flushed,

I've got chills,

What you said about just being present all as well right now.

I need to remind that hear that like that is very powerful.

And I love this reminder of the being still looking at nature.

It's like,

It's deceptively simple,

Yet it is I mean,

I already can feel,

Oh,

This is what's been missing for me.

And I think for many that tune in here,

We tend to be like doers and achievers and want to make a difference.

And something you said it just hit me,

Which is,

I heard almost that,

You know,

We're enough now,

I'm enough now,

All is well now that there's a presence to that.

And this is really this is so powerful.

I'm having a moment myself.

And so am I actually because,

You know,

It's,

I relate,

I'm one of those achiever get doers.

And when I'm with the people who I have seen the happiest,

I mean,

His Holiness,

The Dalai Lama is a great example for me.

He is so fully present,

Where he is in the moment.

And this is a practice.

You know,

You said it's not like these aren't super hard things to do.

It's not complicated.

It's simple,

But it's important.

They're just small habits.

And what I tell people is,

Is just take them just do a little bit every day.

That's all a little bit.

Oh,

I'm all I'm like,

Whoo,

That was so powerful.

Okay,

So I know we may not be able to get into all seven.

Are there any others that you would like to dive into?

Maybe the top two others or three others?

Um,

Let's do let's do a little bit about the body,

Body,

The body,

And then I will do a little simple practice for the heart.

How's that?

Love it.

Okay,

Good.

So the body.

So many ways to go about this.

But I'm going to give you something that you know,

Is so crazy simple,

And it's free.

And it has to do with with the right amount of serotonin and melatonin.

Serotonin being the happiness chemical and melatonin is what helps us sleep and melatonin feeds serotonin and serotonin feeds melatonin.

So when we're happy,

When we're happier,

We sleep better when we sleep better,

We're happier.

So sleep is a really big deal for happiness.

They say that the quality of sleep that you got last night is more important than your for your happiness.

It's more important than your marital status,

Your financial status,

Anything else,

The quality of sleep.

And here's the trick.

The amount of sleep the sleep that you get before midnight is worth twice as much as the sleep that you get after midnight.

Because the restorative sleep that you get,

Especially between 10pm and midnight,

That is the ultimate time for restorative sleep.

And most of us just power through,

You know,

We get naturally the body gets sleepy around 930.

But then you power through and you're on a second wind around 10 o'clock.

This is based in Ayurveda,

Ayurvedic medicine,

Also based in Chinese medicine,

Has to do with our rhythms or circadian cycles.

So what I tell people is if you want to just do an experiment,

Three nights in a row,

Go to bed by 10.

It doesn't matter whether you actually go to sleep,

Just go to bed by 10.

And you will be getting those great,

Great restorative kind of sleep and you'll wake up feeling better.

Give it three nights,

Don't not just one night and see how you feel.

Just use your life as an experiment on that.

So is it better to get less sleep and go to bed at earlier time?

Yes.

Is it better to get seven hours,

Go to bed at 10 and wake up at five in the morning than it is to go to bed at midnight and wake up at eight in the morning?

So really more valuable.

Okay.

I've actually not heard that piece.

And I'm like,

Oh boy,

My husband's been like,

Can we please try to get to bed at 10?

I'm like,

I'm trying,

I'm trying.

But I'm like,

Okay,

What you just said.

So everyone listening,

This is huge.

I didn't realize it makes sense thinking about the rhythms and what I've read,

But I never heard that.

That is powerful.

That's really important.

Let me just tell you a little tiny bit about it that might help you.

It really has helped me.

According to Ayurveda,

We have these cycles,

They're vata,

Pitta and kapha.

And the pitta cycle is the cycle of activity.

And it happens between 10 PM and 2 AM.

It's kind of our big active time of the day.

It's when the sun is the highest.

Pitta is activity and dynamism.

So when you stay awake beyond 10,

The reason you're getting that second wind is because your pitta cycle is kicking in.

You should be sleeping during that cycle from 10 PM and not using up that energy and life force to be doing things at that time.

Okay.

My mind is blown again.

Well,

It's true.

It's literally the funniest thing I've noticed at 10 PM.

If I stay up,

It's like the pumpkin that all of a sudden is the carriage.

I'm like,

What just happened?

I have crazy amounts of energy.

And frankly,

That's been time when often I'm like,

Oh,

It's so quiet.

I love working then because I can get a lot done and what I'm hearing.

It's making a lot of sense.

Like,

No,

That is not the time to do work.

That needs to be sleep time.

It is.

It's the regenerative sleep.

The body needs that and will produce all the great stuff for you so that you can get more done.

Just get up earlier in the morning.

Yeah.

And yeah,

I call it,

I try to catch the 10 o'clock angel train.

I pretend that there's like this little angel train taking me off.

I got to catch that train by 10.

If you don't make the 10 o'clock,

You can at least make the 10 30.

I love that.

Can I,

I'm going to start using that in my house.

I tell my kids we're going to be making the 10 PM angel train.

That's right.

That is awesome.

My God,

Marcy,

This is like,

I feel like there's,

You're packing in so much goodness.

Like I can see all my notes.

I love that.

I'm going,

Going.

This is amazing.

The body,

Anything else with the body or I know you also want to talk about that.

I want to do the heart.

Okay.

I'll just do another little technique for the body.

Yeah.

And we'll do the heart technique.

Okay.

So the body,

I told,

Talked about serotonin.

There is a,

A meditation called the sunning meditation sun as in the bright sun that you can do for two minutes a day to increase your serotonin and all you do.

And I learned this from a Chinese neat song master named Julie Marin.

And all you do is you go outside and you face the sun with your eyes closed.

Super important to do this with your eyes closed,

To not look into the sun with your eyes open.

So eyes closed,

Facing the sun and you spend two minutes allowing the sun to come in and feed your pineal gland in the middle of your body.

And you just,

You can,

You can imagine with your eyes closed,

Your eyes going in kind of figure eights or circles,

And it's just like soaking in that sun.

And what that does is it builds your serotonin.

If you do this a couple of times a day for two weeks,

You will really shift your whole balance of biochemistry with that.

That is awesome.

If you don't have sun for some reason.

Uh-huh.

Good.

If you don't have sun,

And by the way,

You can do it through clouds.

You just face towards the sun and the clouds.

If you do not have sun,

That's when you would take a beautiful piece of nature,

Beautiful nature to look at to also increase the serotonin.

Okay.

Awesome.

These are like so great.

I love,

Julie,

I can tell you like being really practical.

Yeah.

Rubber meets the road.

Okay.

All that theory is good,

But practical.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Let's make our lives better right now.

Right.

I'm definitely not one to wait.

I'm like,

Let's do this now because I know why wait on happiness.

Right.

Right.

Right.

Ashley.

Now one warning is I'm giving you a whole bunch of different things to do.

Don't try to do them all.

Pick one and do that well for a couple of weeks.

Make it a habit and then pick another one.

Because people will fall off if they try to do it all.

Oh,

I just heard this woman talk about happiness and here we're going to go do all these things.

No,

No.

Just pick one of them.

Yeah.

I think you're speaking to myself.

I'm like,

Okay,

I'm going to do all these things.

Right.

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

Just one.

That is awesome.

All right.

Let's do one for opening the heart.

Okay.

When we feel heart open and when we feel bonded and connected with each other,

Which right now we are all on an oxytocin high.

Whether you're listening or whether it's Julie,

You and me,

There's a bonding.

It feels high.

It feels really good.

Yeah.

But I want to give you a way that you can get that oxytocin high when you're on your own.

Okay.

This is a technique called the inner ease technique.

I learned it from the Institute of HeartMath.

They're the world's leading researchers on the heart and perhaps even Bruce Lipton talked about heart math.

I don't know.

He sometimes does.

We're both big heart math fans.

Yeah.

They at heart math,

They found that when you're angry for just five minutes,

When you're feeling frustrated or angry,

It you go into what's called heart rhythm,

Incoherence,

Erratic heart rhythms,

And it can suppress your immune system for up to six hours.

But when you're feeling love and gratitude,

It can strengthen your immune system for up to six hours.

You go into what's called heart rhythm coherence.

And these days,

Don't we all want to have a stronger immune system.

So I'm going to give you not a five minute technique,

But a one minute technique,

Maybe two minutes to get you back,

To get you into heart rhythm coherence.

And Julie,

You're going to be my guinea pig.

So I want you to tell me at the end of this,

How you feel any different than you did beforehand.

Okay.

Okay.

So now you can do this technique with your eyes opened or closed,

But we're for now for the purposes of now,

We're going to do it with our eyes closed because it goes a little bit deeper.

Okay.

Okay.

So let's close our eyes.

And the very first thing to do is to put your hand on your heart.

And this very simple act of putting your hand on your heart.

So it's called heart focus.

It helps produce more of that oxytocin.

Oxytocin is the love hormone that we have when we're bonded with each other,

But you can just feel it yourself.

You can stimulate it for yourself by putting your hand on your heart and focusing on your heart area.

Now the next step is to imagine that you're breathing in and out through the center of your heart.

Your breath is coming into your heart.

Your breath is going out of your heart.

At your own pace,

You're breathing into your heart.

You're breathing out of your heart.

And you may already start to just feel a subtle shift.

And finally,

The last step is on each inhale.

Imagine that you're breathing in love,

Ease,

And compassion.

On every inhale,

On your exhale,

Just exhale out of your heart.

On your inhales,

Focus on breathing into your heart,

Love,

Ease and compassion.

Sometimes some people have an easier time doing that if they remember a time when they felt love,

Ease,

Or compassion.

Or maybe you can think of somebody who makes you feel that way or a four-legged.

Or if those don't work as well for you,

You can just quietly in your mind silently say the words love,

Ease,

And compassion.

And that works just as well.

You're breathing into your heart,

Love,

Ease,

And compassion.

And then breathing out of your heart.

And one last time,

Breathing in love,

Ease,

And compassion.

And on that exhale,

You can take your hand away and you can slowly open your eyes.

And I want you to notice as you're all getting back into your normal place,

How do you feel any different than you did two minutes ago?

And so Julie,

You're my guinea pig.

How do you feel different?

You know what's so amazing is I was feeling,

I mean,

Honestly,

Super happy,

Like almost high talking to you.

And I felt this,

Like behind you,

I have a lot of Rose quartz around me.

And all I can say is I felt this energy,

Which I connect with my grandmother's energy of this like expansive,

Loving,

Compassion.

It's like,

Oh,

It just shifted.

It's like the depth of my being thrilled to be here with you,

It felt even deeper.

And I felt this like connectivity.

I actually felt my grandmother,

Her essence come in and that was amazing.

It's funny,

I've done things like that,

But for set your voice and the timing and the,

I don't know.

It's funny because now everything looks a little more golden light.

It's really powerful.

Oh,

Cool.

Well,

So different people will have different responses.

That's beautiful.

And some people just feel more grounded or more centered or more balanced or maybe tingling in their heart or whatever,

Physical sensations.

All of these are signs that you've moved into what science calls the love response.

Science has found that there is a stress response and it's got its own brain activity,

Its own biochemistry,

Its own heart rhythms,

But there's also a love response that has its own biochemistry and all.

And so here's the thing,

Doing that once,

Okay,

It's a nice experience,

But it's not going to change your life.

Here's what I want to suggest.

Do this twice a day for the next week or two,

And you will start to habituate being in love response.

I've done this thousands of times.

All I have to do now is put my hand up to my heart right away.

I feel the whole thing come over me.

So that's one of the possible processes that you could do to raise your happiness set point.

I love this,

Marcie.

What I love is it is practical,

But we are in a very interesting time.

There's a lot of shifting.

We have the elections,

We've got Pint Dem,

And we've got lots of things going on,

A lot of fascinating events.

And I love each of these examples,

Especially the love response technique because it's free,

It's always with you,

And you get that result.

I literally feel different from doing that.

And you don't even have to close your eyes.

You can do it while you're standing in line at the grocery store.

You can do it when you're just waiting,

When you're on the phone waiting for customer service.

Right.

That's a good time to do it.

Yeah,

Really.

Anytime that you start to feel,

I mean,

I know for me,

It's become this,

Especially I don't really watch the news purposely.

I try to read it in black and white and that's about it.

I'm just too sensitive for that.

But if you're starting to feel overwhelmed,

It's like,

That is such a great technique.

That was so powerful.

It's awesome.

Oh my goodness.

Thank you so much.

The truth is,

I feel like I'm pausing myself because I really would love to keep talking to you for hours.

I feel like I have 10,

000 more questions and this is so helpful.

I really appreciate you and what it took to go from being on the bed crying to shifting your whole life to be able to teach this.

We need this right now so much so.

This is crucial information.

It really is.

We aren't in time for this.

This is what we need.

Yeah,

I agree with you.

This is what we need.

You know,

Julie,

Sometimes people ask me if it's selfish to want to be happier.

There's so much going on in the world.

Don't I need to focus on how can I contribute to the world?

What I've found is I actually think it's not selfish at all because there is something called emotional contagion.

We catch the emotions of the people around us like we catch their colds.

We want to be the transmitters of the good emotions.

People are catching that.

I think when we're happier,

We are a great blessing for the world.

In fact,

There's a beautiful Chinese proverb that I often like to share if I can that really sums up why I'm so passionate about people being happy.

And it goes like this.

It says,

When there is light in the soul,

There will be beauty in the person.

When there is beauty in the person,

There will be harmony in the house.

When there is harmony in the house,

There will be order in the nation.

And when there is order in the nation,

There will be peace in this world.

And that is my prayer and my wish for everybody that we all know that light in our souls.

And through that,

We help create more peace here on this planet that certainly needs it.

That is beautiful.

We will get that later.

It's so powerful.

I'm so with you.

And that is exactly,

Thank you.

Thank you because you're shining your light of your soul and the beauty in and out of who you are.

Honestly,

It allows and gives permission and shares how we can all do that.

And I agree with you.

We need this.

Everybody to access their own light for real.

So important.

So beautiful.

I always like to end by asking,

I call them heart flares where you have like maybe one more little thing in your heart that's just saying like,

Hold on,

I want to say one more thing.

And if not,

That's okay.

But is there anything left that's kind of a heart flare that you'd like to share with anybody who's listening?

That our souls called us to this and they called us to this message together.

They called us to be together right now.

And there's something in this and in being together that we are supporting each other,

Even though I don't see who's listening,

Watching this and we don't see each other.

To tune into there is an energetic vortex that I believe we've created together in this conversation that will can help each of us move forward.

And I just feel really honored to get to be here with all of you and everybody who's together in this conversation,

Because this is what the world needs.

Thank you so much.

That was beautiful.

Thank you,

Marcy.

You are such a gem.

Thank you.

Reviews

I need to read the book. Always learning. I am generally happy. But can always learn more to expand the practice. 37 years sober. 74 years old. Thanks for this interview.

I finally found a 5 star worthy talk! I may have given out some 5’s in the past due to liking something about them but this really resonates and makes me want to look into this further!

This was a wonderful talk, however, at minute 18, it started over. Please try to fix this glitch and share with us. I look forward to hearing it again in full.