Latest / Good Morning From The Chicken Coop! / Season 3 - Episode 165 - How do you BUILD happiness?

Transcript

Season 3 - Episode 165 - How do you BUILD happiness? · Good Morning From The Chicken Coop!

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  Welcome to the Good Morning from the Chicken Coop podcast with
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  Kim Johnson, your creative strategist and mastermind set
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  coach. Filled with inspiration,
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  distinctions, perspectives, and possibilities, we help you to
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  cultivate a mindset that leads you to create the best version
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  of yourself you could ever imagine.
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  Join Kim every morning from one of her favorite happy places,
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  her chicken coop, along with all her chickens.
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  Hey everybody, good morning from the chicken coop.
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  So let me ask you a question. What do you believe happiness
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  is? If I asked you to define
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  happiness, what would you come up with?
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  Have you ever actually sat and thought about it?
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  Have you ever actually said to yourself, well how do I
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  personally define happiness? I think this question is
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  critical to our well-being because if we don't define
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  happiness and we don't put ourselves in a position of
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  regularly examining how we do this, what ends up happening is
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  we start to focus on, as human beings, we all do it anyway,
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  focus on what's wrong. And we say, well, I'm not happy
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  because there's something that makes us unhappy or irritates
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  us. And then we end up going to a
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  position of being unhappy in the world.
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  And I don't think that's necessary because is anybody
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  ever happy 1000% of the time? Well, that depends on how you
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  define it. And it everybody's got
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  individual ways that they go through this.
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  And I think that we're not taught this when we're little.
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  I know we're not taught this when we're little.
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  And I think that telling someone to just be happy is frustrating,
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  especially if you are unhappy. The last thing you want is
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  someone to walk up to you and say, we'll just be happy.
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  Because if I knew how to be happy, don't you think I would
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  be happy? But I'm not happy.
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  So therefore I am in this state of despair and disgust about
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  myself because I just can't do it.
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  But you're saying. So I thought it would be an
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  interesting, you know, jumping off point for us, if you will,
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  to look at how you personally define happiness and tell you
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  how I look at this in my own world.
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  Because I've gone through this multiple times in my life at
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  different points in time and read endless numbers of content
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  on this. And I find it really fascinating
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  how certain people tell you to do things and don't understand
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  where you are, where you're beginning and what's going on.
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  And I don't want to do that to you guys ever.
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  So I'm going to give you some thoughts on how I do it and you
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  can see if this works for you because I personally don't
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  believe that we were meant to be happy all the time.
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  That does not mean we were meant to be miserable as well.
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  I believe emotions are a guidance system and I believe
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  that they are here to give us information and what we do with
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  it pulls us back. So we are supposed to be on a
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  course in our lives. Overall.
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  Our course is like, if you were thinking of it in terms of
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  taking a trip, you are going to go from Boston to LA, let's say,
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  and there's an intention to get on that plane and fly.
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  But the whole time you're flying, of course, everything
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  has to be redirected because of weather and conditions and all
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  these other things that take place and there's constant
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  corrections. Well, that's just like our life,
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  right? We're supposed to, you know,
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  work on seeing what makes us thrive, what gives us passion,
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  if you will, what gives us, you know, that feeling of I'm doing
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  well. And as we're on that course,
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  happiness is part of it. Dalai Lama says the purpose of
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  life is to be happy, and I believe that.
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  I believe the purpose that we are here is to find our version
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  of happy and to work into that every single day.
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  Finding your version of happy, however, you know, because we're
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  human beings and because things happen and because we develop
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  with resistance, the more things that show up in our lives that
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  help shape us, whether they're positive, negative, doesn't
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  matter. We develop with resistance and
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  we resist things naturally as human beings.
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  It's crazy how we do it, but we just do it.
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  And we'll often say, wow, this started out and it was a really
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  crappy situation, but now I can see the benefits of it.
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  But in the beginning, we resisted it.
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  It's just our nature to be more cautious on that.
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  But for me, happiness is something that I work towards
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  every single day. Am I happy 1000% of the time?
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  No, that would be silly and I would never say that that's the
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  truth. But what I do look for is
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  stringing happy moments together and remembering those happy
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  moments because when I can string them together throughout
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  a day, throughout a week, a month and capture things like
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  that, then I can look back and say, wow, I actually do have
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  happy things happening. Even if bad things happen.
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  And it doesn't matter who you are, it doesn't matter what you
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  know, a bounty you have in your life, you're going to have
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  things that happened that aren't fun, that aren't good.
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  And that's OK. It's totally OK because that's
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  the human condition. That's what we do.
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  And you know, we all figure out our way through it one way or
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  another. But stringing these happy events
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  together is a process of training your brain to look for
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  them in the 1st place. So you can start to say, OK,
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  these micro happy events, as I like to call them, these tiny
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  things that happen, You know, your dog is out on a walk with
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  you and your dog happens to look up at you while you're walking
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  because your dog is just here to remind you of how much you're
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  loved. I mean, I'm convinced of that.
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  Dogs are here to remind us how much we're loved.
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  You're walking, your dog looks up at you.
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  That's a happy moment. You know, you're getting
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  unconditional love in that moment.
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  And you might not get any other unconditional love in the day,
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  but from that dog in that moment, he gave it to you.
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  Did you even notice? Well, that's a question.
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  Did you notice? I tend to use my camera.
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  Those of you who are regular listeners know that I do this.
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  I tend to use my camera to take pictures of little things that I
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  find that are my happy moments. Flowers, butterflies walking
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  around, things that are cool, pictures, angles of trees,
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  architecture, anything during my day.
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  And I legitimately have way too many photos in my iPhoto.
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  My husband would be the first one to tell you this, but they
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  are for me the road map of did I find anything, you know,
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  visually today that brought me those little moments of joy.
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  And I do it every day. And that's why you're hearing me
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  out in the chicken coop because they bring me so much joy.
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  You know, I brought them out this morning, bananas and
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  shredded zucchini. And you should have seen how
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  excited they were. They were just going crazy.
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  And I know that that's a joy for them.
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  So I bring that to them and it brings me joy and happiness.
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  And I can string that moment together.
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  And at the end of the day, I have all these moments I can
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  refer back to that say, wow, today I strung a nice thread of
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  happy moments. And I don't have to focus on the
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  fact that it has to be 24/7 because that's ridiculous.
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  It's the beginning of the school year.
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  I know I'm going to have resistance and have things that
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  show up with my son because, oh, back to school, right?
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  That's going to happen. For those of us that have kids
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  that are back in school, some of them are excited, but the
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  majority of them are like, I don't want to do this and it's
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  OK because we're going to work our way through it and we will
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  find happy things. And I will say to him, tell me
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  something happy that happened today.
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  Tell me something great that happened today.
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  Give me those little threads so that I can start to weave
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  something that puts people in a better place and puts myself in
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  a better place. So your challenge is going to be
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  to go out and start to string together some happy thoughts,
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  happy moments, happy recognitions, just those little
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  tiny droplets. And remember, don't fault
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  yourself for not being happy all the time, because nobody is.
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  And if they're telling you that they're full of shit because
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  they're not and it's OK. What we want to do is just
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  constantly navigate ourselves back to a place where we're
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  neutral and where we can take in and where we can notice and
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  where we can be at peace and centered and choose happiness
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  throughout it. Now, do I believe the purpose of
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  life is to be happy? Yes, I do 'cause I think that
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  why would any anybody want to do anything but that?
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  But that is a process that you have to work at and work at and
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  work at and work at. So go string some happy thoughts
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  together today, go find some happy moments and I will see you
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  guys tomorrow. Bye.