Small Practices for Brighter Days With Paula Felps and Michelle Jones

0:03Michelle Jones:Thank you for joining us for episode 560 of Live Happy Now. As we enter March and observe Happiness Month, we're going to kick things off by talking about gloom and doom. I'm your host, Paula Felps, and today I'm joined by Live Happy Social Media Manager Michelle Jones, who's here to talk with me about the results of a new Gallup poll that shows Americans are not in a good mood. We're going to talk about those results and the practices you can use to turn it around. Then we'll talk about what we have planned for happiness month and the international day of happiness on March 20th. So you can be a part of it.

0:39Michelle Jones:Let's have a listen. Michelle, welcome back to live happy and thank you for joining me on the show. Hey, Paula, good to be back. Well, it's a big month for us. It's a special time of the year. It is March and tell Tell us why that is so important.

0:55Paula Felps:March is Live Happy's Super Bowl. It is Happiness Month. International Day of Happiness is March 20th. We are ready to roll. And we need to clarify, we are not giving away Super Bowl rings for this. Not this time. Maybe next year.

1:10Michelle Jones:That's going to be our merch grab for next year.

1:12Paula Felps:Perfect. Advertising and Super Bowl rings. Done.

1:17Michelle Jones:All right. We have our plan for next year. But for 2026, it's not going to be like that. But you and I wanted to get together and talk about this because it is such an interesting time in history to be celebrating happiness. In reality, right now, America is really going through a dark and difficult time. And you and I had received this recent poll from Gallup, and we talked about that. And it's showing that we as a country are really not in a very good mood. So anyone who's listening to this, if you've been feeling heavier lately, you're not imagining it. it's not just you. It is a real thing for this country right now.

1:55Michelle Jones:So Michelle, do you want to talk a little bit about some of the findings from this poll? I'm not going to call them highlights

2:00Paula Felps:because they're really not. They're not. No. Yeah. So in 2025, 59 % of Americans gave a high rating when they were asked to evaluate how good their life will be in five years. So you may think that's not bad. That's still more than half the population, but it is the lowest level since Gallup began asking this question, and that was about 20 years ago.

2:23Michelle Jones:So what this is saying is what? Like only 59 % of people think their lives are going to be good five years from now? Is that?

2:32Paula Felps:Yeah, it's talking about how Americans feel about their future. And it's down more than we even feel about life right now. So they're saying they're not that hopeful about what's going to go on in the future. Regardless of what's going on now, they don't think it's going to get any better, which is really concerning.

2:50Michelle Jones:And have we ever had a time like this in history before? Because I see a lot of measurements that are saying like, we felt like this here, we felt like this here. Yeah.

2:59Paula Felps:So this is actually the lowest that people have thought about their future in the 20 years that Gallup's been asking the question. But current life optimism was lower only in 2020, which was right in the middle of COVID. So people were thinking, right now I'm not feeling so good, rightfully so. And that's really the only other time it's been lower.

3:20Michelle Jones:Man. So how is that divided? Let's kind of talk about is this, are there any certain segments that feel worse than others that are happier or more optimistic than others?

3:29Paula Felps:So funny enough, it's not a political thing. It's not a Democrat or Republican response. Both parties reported feeling less optimistic about where we're headed.

3:39Michelle Jones:Yeah. And as we talked about this and we really dug into these findings, we decided it was something we did want to talk about. You know, it seems counter to Live Happy, the brand, but our whole mission is about helping people stay hopeful and empowered even when news and events are feeling dark and heavy. And so we really want to be able to focus on the practices to help everyone through it. And we've had so many recent episodes about that. It's like hope, developing adaptability, creating connections, things like that. It's these small incremental changes that we make, not like this big, everything's fine because we don't ever want to talk like toxic positivity.

4:20Michelle Jones:We're not ignoring what's going on around us, but we just want to dig into how we can balance what's going on and find practices that'll lift us up.

4:28Paula Felps:Yeah. And Paula, this is a topic I find so important. I know it's something that we both talk about when we create content for Live Happy, whether that's something we're posting on Facebook and Instagram or through the podcast. All of you listening right now, our audience, you have made it very clear through your comments and feedback that you appreciate that we don't just ignore what's happening in the world. We're not here to tell you everything's fine. Good vibes only. That is not us. We know things are not always going to go well for us all the time. So when things do get tough, we have to turn to those real world practical ways to keep us from crashing out, whether that's giving ways to reframing our thinking or providing tools that we can use right now today.

5:10Michelle Jones:And one of the big simple steps is avoiding the news. And this is a really funny thing for you and I to talk about because we both come from news backgrounds. You come from the broadcast side. I come from the print side. So it really runs counter to our entire careers to be like, don't absorb so much news. And one thing about the news that I wanted to talk about, because I always found this amusing, like we are familiar with the concept of the news giving us a whole bunch of bad news, like in broadcast, 28 minutes of bad news, two minutes of a happy story. But there really is a philosophy behind that.

5:52Michelle Jones:And we can kind of adopt that in our personal lives. Can you talk about why news inundates us with the bad and then follows up with the good?

6:00Paula Felps:Yeah, I think people understand. and they get that news burnout is very real, especially today. It takes a lot out of you emotionally. It's sad. Sometimes it makes you angry. Sometimes it drains your emotions. So the kicker, as it's called in broadcast, helps people manage those emotions. It helps prevent the show from abruptly ending. And then you're just left with all this emotional baggage and you have nowhere to release it. So that positive story at the end helps you process what you've just watched, and then get some relief from it.

6:32Michelle Jones:So being able to bring in that whole philosophy into our personal lives, being able to end your day with something positive, no matter how bad it's been. We recently had Ann Grady on the show, and she talked about when her son was institutionalized, he had severe mental illness, autism, a lot of problems going on. And she would leave the institution that she had just put him in and go back to her hotel and watch comedy. Not because she felt like, hey, I'm in the mood for comedy, but she needed that to offset the heaviness of her life around it. And so it really is balancing it with humor or with noticing something that's good in the world and finding something that can lift us up, whatever that, whether it's a cat video or a comedian.

7:20Paula Felps:Yeah, I think that our negativity bias plays a big role here. It is so easy to harp on all the negative stuff. And that is by design. It is in our brains. We are wired to notice threats more than progress. It is a survival instinct that has evolved as we as a species has evolved. And we remember negative events more vividly than positive ones. It's why we remember one little criticism over being praised multiple, multiple times. And this instinct was originally meant to protect us. But now today, it's not a survival instinct like it was in history, but it leads to a lot of stress and anxiety for people now.

8:01Michelle Jones:Yeah. And our nervous systems were not designed for this kind of overwhelm. That has been pointed out by so many experts over and over. I feel like everyone I've talked to on the show so far this year has pointed out we are not designed to take in this much negativity, this much information, just the sheer volume of information, even if it was positive. would be too much for us to process. So you have a great way that you're coping with it right now and talk to us about this because it's a good strategy.

8:33Paula Felps:Yeah. I mean, it's so true. We are just, we have access to everything all the time and we know every little tiny thing that's going on worldwide. So I think this is why a lot of people really enjoyed watching the Winter Olympics. It's something we talked about recently on our social media channels. There is this shared sense of achievement and strangers coming together. They're rooting for the same team and you feel really good witnessing people achieve their lifelong dreams. I know for me, I got choked up watching it, but it does work the other way too. So if all you're ever watching is something awful happening in the world, it is so easy to feel this sense of hopelessness.

9:15Paula Felps:And if we focus on that alone and we don't actively look for the good, we can feel incredibly overwhelmed.

9:22Michelle Jones:And another great thing that an event like the Olympics, this is true of any sporting event, music events, things like that, it brings us together and closes divides. A gentleman who was on the show a couple of times, Peter Montoya, he really talked about restoring civility. and he had done a lot of research and had tracked the division in our society back to when comedians started becoming political. When you had just Johnny Carson, everybody watched Johnny Carson and they would talk about it at work the next day and it was something they could share a chuckle with. As comedians became more political, that divide started being felt in the office.

10:01Michelle Jones:Up until then, you may not have known how somebody felt politically. It changed the way that we started seeing each other. So events like sporting events, music events, those kinds of things help us find that common ground and give us that, also give us a sense of relief from all the information that we're consuming. We'll be right back with more of Live Happy Now.

10:28Michelle Jones:And now let's hear more. there are practices that we can use to kind of counterbalance that big picture gloom and all the effects of doom scrolling there's a lot of evidence-based practices like gratitude and connection and purpose kindness but let's talk about what is your go-to reframing is a big

10:50Paula Felps:one for me i've been reading a lot lately about how millennials were taught to work really hard and you'll get the job, you'll get the salary you want, you can do all the fun things, travel the world. And then they work their way up the ranks 15, 20 years, they get there. And then they're like, this is it. This is what I worked so hard for. I am not happy. And something I've realized now that I did not realize in my 20s and much of my 30s was that is not where happiness lives. That is not where you find your worth. And my tool is this. I ask myself, whatever's happening politically, socially, economically, anything that gets me worked up makes me feel that life is just so overwhelming right now.

11:34Paula Felps:I ask, does that actually affect my day-to-day life? Does it impair my ability to live my life peacefully? And if the answer is no, I just let it go. Completely out of my brain. I do not let myself give it any attention.

11:48Michelle Jones:And that's a hard habit to develop. That's something where you need the sticky notes on the mirrors to remind you, you know, will it matter? Does it matter? Or can I let this go? Because that's not something that just comes naturally to us. We want to obsess on it. And that also brings up the point of focusing on your immediate sphere of influence, because you're looking now at what you can change and what you have power over. You can't change the world. You can't change all these problems that are going on. but you do have a choice about how you respond to it. And that's always what it comes down to.

12:23Michelle Jones:It's like, how are we going to be able to respond to it? And one practice that I would encourage anyone to use is to just ask yourself, like, what is one thing that I can do today that brings me back to center? Because if you can have one go-to, whether it's, you know, 20 minutes of listening to music or taking a walk or whatever it is, I think then you've got at least something in your toolkit you've got a plan. And so Michelle, what actions do you like to take when things get a little out of hand?

12:53Paula Felps:Yeah, this is one I've been going to over the last couple of months where the weather hasn't been so great and I can't get out in nature or take a walk or grab the dogs and walk around the neighborhood. But I like to go to the local coffee shop out in the country and I sit with a latte and I just listen. And 99 % of the time, people are not complaining about the world. They're talking about gratitude. They're talking about the rain we just got to get out of this drought and how thankful they are for that. They're excited about the impending spring weather. And if I'm really feeling the conversation, I'll engage.

13:32Paula Felps:And that is always what fills my cup.

13:36Michelle Jones:That's a really good way to do it because we do forget that small talk, the value of small talk, of just kind of checking out of the big picture and checking in with like little minutiae of the day. There is a value to that that kind of disengages our overthinking brain and lets us kind of breathe into that space.

13:54Paula Felps:Absolutely.

13:55Michelle Jones:Paula, what do you do? Well, this won't surprise you. I have a couple of things I love to do. One of them, like I just mentioned, is music. There is a way that I intentionally listen to music. I'm a big music fan. I've done the Positive Note podcast, and there's so much research about how good music is for you emotionally, spiritually, physically. But then I read more research recently about how if you do it intentionally, you can actually boost those benefits. So it's not just turning on my Spotify playlist. It's actually saying like, okay, I'm going to do this with the intention of lifting my spirits.

14:31Michelle Jones:And so you already set your intention for what you're going to accomplish. And the music will help you do that. So that's one of the things I do with it. And the other is, we just talked about this too, is humor. Love, love, love using comedy. Wrapping up the night with a few reels. Kathleen Madigan, little Taylor Tomlinson. It's good to go to bed with a smile on your face. I love it. What is your go-to song? Oh, man. Well, it depends on the day. on your mood. See right now what's running through my head is the meatloaf song. I would do anything to love, but I won't do that. I can't tell you why, but I just have like a song of the day every day that kind of sticks in there and runs around.

15:19Paula Felps:And that's just kind of how I

15:20Michelle Jones:roll.