Happiness Podcast

What Is Happiness (Peace vs. Ecstasy) What is happiness?   Is happiness, ecstasy, "an overwhelming feeling of great happiness or joyful excitement?"  Or is happiness, peace, "freedom from disturbance; tranquility?"  Understanding what happiness is, is the most effective way to help happiness appear in our lives more often. New Happiness Podcast episode with Dr. Robert Puff, Newport Beach Psychologist

Planned Spontaneity (Finding Our Happiness Flow) One of the most significant challenges in life is finding a balance between planning for the future and living in the moment.  Yet, when we can do both, then our lives flow.  In this podcast, we explore how to live with planned spontaneity.  New Happiness Podcast episode with Dr. Robert Puff, Newport Beach Psychologist

Doing Your Best (Creating a Happy Life) There are a lot of benefits to doing your best at something—success, accolades, money, promotions, etc. Unfortunately, the results aren't always what we expect or want because so many things are out of our control. But what would happen if we did our best to be happy people?   Regarding our happiness, we are more powerful and reap the benefits of our efforts. New Happiness Podcast episode with Dr. Robert Puff, Newport Beach Psychologist

Financial Happiness (What is Really Important) Worries about financial issues can cause us sleepless nights, no matter how much money we have or make.  Yet, this doesn't have to be the case.  We can find financial freedom from worries when we better understand money's true importance (or lack of importance) regarding our happiness. New Happiness Podcast episode with Dr. Robert Puff, Newport Beach Psychologist

When Less Is More (Less Ego, More Happiness) We often miss out on so much of life because we tend to listen to what our culture says we should do and be instead of listening to our hearts.  Learn the importance of adopting a more spontaneous, childlike approach to living. New Happiness Podcast episode with Dr. Robert Puff, Newport Beach Psychologist

When Others Hurt You One of the most challenging experiences that can happen to us is when someone we love and trust hurts us.  What can and should we do when others inflict emotional pain on us?  Instead of healing from these wounds, we often turn towards four unhealthy responses.  But we can, thankfully, heal from these hurts and move on. New Happiness Podcast episode with Dr. Robert Puff, Newport Beach Psychologist

How Do I Know Who I Am We take on so many labels during our lifetime.  And sometimes, they completely change.  I am a rich person; I am a depressed person; I am a wife and mother.  But what would happen if we stopped identifying with any label and just flowed with life?  Might we find that freedom and happiness, which are always there, come rushing back in?  New Happiness Podcast episode with Dr. Robert Puff, Newport Beach Psychologist

Secret to a Happy Life What is the secret to a happy life?  Happiness is an exclusive club that few can join.  Instead, we can all be happy if we do two things.  First, we need to fully engage in the here and now.  Second, we need to call life play, not work.  Happiness will be ours if we do these two things throughout the day. New Happiness Podcast episode with Dr. Robert Puff, Newport Beach Psychologist

When Someone You Love Is Hurting When someone you love is hurting, there are four things you can do to be helpful and kind.  Be present.  Don't judge them for their struggles.  Be careful not to get burnout or overwhelmed.  And finally, don't feel guilty for their pain.  These four things are easy to do, but when we do them well, we can support our hurting loved ones. New Happiness Podcast episode with Dr. Robert Puff, Newport Beach Psychologist

Unhealthy Attachments: “Yes, But Not That” Though most of us are seeking to live a happy life, unfortunately, there is a high price for happiness. All attachments need to be preferences or things we would prefer but can live without. We tend to say, "Yes, but not that." Any attachment can ultimately be unhealthy, that is, if our goal is unqualified happiness.

Carpe Diem: Stop Putting Hope in the Future When we put our hopes in the future, we often stop living now. The end is, at best, uncertain and sometimes different from what we were expecting or wanting. If we, instead, carpe diem or seize the day, we will find happiness throughout our life journey instead of in the future hopes that may never come true.

The Happiness Formula (How do I make this work?) A formula for happiness is based on some simple yet challenging principles. First, we exhaust every option to improve our current situation. Second, once we have exhausted our options and nothing has changed, we ask a critical question: "How can I make this work?" Happiness is always an option as long as we can accept the current situation and make that work.

How to Deal with Negativity There can be a lot of negativity that we get exposed to throughout the day. A stranger flips us off as we are commuting to work, and we watch ugly human behaviors that show up on our phone scrolling. The key is to not dwell on the negative behaviors of others and redirect our focus on the "positive" events around us.

When Bad Things Happen To Good People What are we to do when bad things happen in our lives? Is it helpful to look for causes and find blame? Or is there a healthier way to deal with bad things happening to good people? "I am not responsible for what happens to me, but I am responsible for how I handle it."

Are Expectations Good or Bad? Are having expectations helpful or harmful for us in the long run? The danger with expectations is our expectations is that sometimes they aren't met, which can cause us stress, anger, and anxiety. And even life fulfills our expectations; they only give us a little satisfaction. Explore positive ways to live life with or without expectations.

Optimists Live Longer (New Research Say Yes) New research describes how optimistic people, on average, live 15% to 20% longer than more pessimistic persons and have a 50% to 70% chance of reaching 85 years old. How do we change our negative habits and live longer? Come and explore the beautiful possibilities. ---Lewina O. Lee, Peter James, Emily S. Zevon, Eric S. Kim, Claudia Trudel-Fitzgerald, Avron Spiro III, Francine Grodstein, and Laura D. Kubzansky. Optimism is associated with exceptional longevity in 2 epidemiologic cohorts of men and women. PNAS, 2019 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1900712116  

Does Money Buy Happiness (New Research Say No) A recent research study found that people are happy even in more impoverished areas. More importantly, people are more content in these places than in more affluent areas in the same countries. In other words, "happiness is not in principle related to economic outcome." More critical to happiness are feeling safe, spending time in nature, and living in a supportive community. McGill University. (2021, February 8). Happiness really does come for free: People in societies where money plays a minimal role can have very high levels of happiness. ScienceDaily. Retrieved December 19, 2022 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/02/210208161922.htm

When Boredom Strikes Boredom is a problem that many of us face. Because when we feel bored, we often look for things that remove that feeling, yet sometimes our choices that remove our boredom come with negative (even dire) consequences. Explore healthy ways to address our boredom and live a healthy life.

The Power of Our Words The power of our words is genuinely astonishing. With our words, we can ask someone to spend the rest of our lives together, and at the same time, our words can destroy a decades-old relationship. Not only do the word we share affect others, but they also impact us based on what we hear in our heads all day long. Most importantly, our words can create love, kindness, and joy in us and those around us.

Karmic Consequences (How Our Thoughts and Actions Reap Results) If you plant poison ivy seeds, you cannot expect blueberries to grow from those seeds. Our thoughts and actions that we engage with throughout the day reap consequences. The question is, what are we going to reap? Because everything we think and do matters. Explore ways to plant happiness in your life and those around you.