Embarking on a spiritual journey often leaves one awash with a sense of contentment; it's an experience I've come to cherish through my personal morning devotion rituals. This week, we invite you into a realm where happiness intertwines with religion and spirituality, exploring the profound impact these elements have on our well-being. Inspired by Happiness Activities 11 and 12 from Sonja Lyubomirsky's "The How of Happiness," we discuss how being part of a faith community often correlates with increased happiness and health, and how this practice extends beyond the confines of traditional religious doctrine to a personal relationship with the divine.
The quest for meaning and purpose in our lives is a universal pursuit, one that can often feel like navigating through a labyrinth. But what if the compass you need lies within the power of faith and spirituality? In this conversation, we delve into the psychological evidence suggesting that active participation in spiritual practices can lead to longer, healthier lives and provide profound comfort during life's most challenging times. We also reflect on the importance of community and meaning, how they support us through life's twists and turns, and the dual nature of religion as both a source of solace and, at times, sorrow.
As we gear up for next week's episode, we're thrilled to tease our discussions on meditation and mindfulness, complementing this week's insights on prayer and sacred rituals. Our friend Michelle King will also join us for special episodes on "The 12-Week Year," offering strategies for personal growth and living a truly fulfilling life. Stick with us as we navigate these transformative practices, striving to not just find happiness but to thrive in it, day after day.
Connect with us on our LinkedIn page School of Thoughts . We also value your reviews, subscribing, and sharing our podcast "What's On Your Bookshelf?" on Apple and Spotify.
Embarking on a spiritual journey often leaves one awash with a sense of contentment; it's an experience I've come to cherish through my personal morning devotion rituals. This week, we invite you into a realm where happiness intertwines with religion and spirituality, exploring the profound impact these elements have on our well-being. Inspired by Happiness Activities 11 and 12 from Sonja Lyubomirsky's "The How of Happiness," we discuss how being part of a faith community often correlates with increased happiness and health, and how this practice extends beyond the confines of traditional religious doctrine to a personal relationship with the divine.
The quest for meaning and purpose in our lives is a universal pursuit, one that can often feel like navigating through a labyrinth. But what if the compass you need lies within the power of faith and spirituality? In this conversation, we delve into the psychological evidence suggesting that active participation in spiritual practices can lead to longer, healthier lives and provide profound comfort during life's most challenging times. We also reflect on the importance of community and meaning, how they support us through life's twists and turns, and the dual nature of religion as both a source of solace and, at times, sorrow.
As we gear up for next week's episode, we're thrilled to tease our discussions on meditation and mindfulness, complementing this week's insights on prayer and sacred rituals. Our friend Michelle King will also join us for special episodes on "The 12-Week Year," offering strategies for personal growth and living a truly fulfilling life. Stick with us as we navigate these transformative practices, striving to not just find happiness but to thrive in it, day after day.
Connect with us on our LinkedIn page School of Thoughts . We also value your reviews, subscribing, and sharing our podcast "What's On Your Bookshelf?" on Apple and Spotify.
Welcome to what's On your Bookshelf with your hosts, denise.
Speaker 2:
Rousseau and.
Speaker 1:
Samantha Powell. Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of what's On your Bookshelf. This is a life and leadership podcast where we are exploring and deeply diving into the pages of books that are on our bookshelves. My name is Denise Rousseau. I'm here with my co-host, sam Powell. We are talking about exploring and living through a book called the how of Happiness. This book was written by a psychologist named Sanjia Lya Burmersky and we are really the book. We're like halfway through the book, but we're actually almost to the end of the book. So, sam, as we get kicked off for today, I wonder if you can bring us up to speed. We sort of ended short last week talking about how to plan goals and how we could maybe help people with that, because this chapter really is going to shift our focus away from goals into something that's more about feelings.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so last week we talked about Happiness Activity Number 10, which was all around setting goals and was its own chapter. It was an entire, the entire activity was actually its own chapter. But this we're moving into Happiness Activity 11, which is in the same chapter as Happiness Activity Number 12. So we're moving into taking care of your body and soul in this chapter with the last two activities, but the goal I mean just for those of you that did listen to last week's episode the chapter on goals did get a lot deeper than we spent time on.
Speaker 2:
So if you do feel like, oh, I'd love to really dive deep into how to set goals I mean there's some great stuff in this book if you're hopefully reading along with us and again, if you need help with really executing and setting goals and thinking it out loud with somebody, that's where coaching comes into. So Denise and I are happy to help you with that and really happy to get into that. And, denise, I know that we've got a couple of special episodes coming up with you and a friend of ours who really does talk about maybe how to frame up a strategy around goals. So I don't know if you want to tell us a little bit about that before we hop into our Happiness Activity Number 11.
Speaker 1:
I would love to do that. So Michelle King, who's another multi-certified coach, friend of ours and passionate about self-development and leadership development, she gifted me a book during the holidays called the 12-Week Year, which is by Brian Moran and Michael Lenington. The 12-Week Year is about how can you really focus in and hone in on the goals that are the most important in your life and get more done in 12 weeks than most people get done in 12 months. It is a life-changing book. When I got the book, I read it in two days.
Speaker 1:
I started applying it right away right after the holidays and I think I shared on a couple of episodes how I've been on this run of just great results and happiness and peace, and just 2024 has been a good year for me, and so I'm not going to credit it all to one book, but I will say that between the how of Happiness and the 12-Week Year and investing quality time with you, sam, that these things all together are all coming together, and I hope for our listeners that you're getting value out of these episodes and that you don't just listen and go away from it.
Speaker 1:
The reason we created what's on your bookshelf is to take a deep dive into books so that you could live them out loud with us, because we're doing the same thing and yet it's easy for your short-term memory to go away. So revisit this stuff. Go back to the episodes. I think we're going to be working on this year somehow a way for us to give even more supplemental information for people that just need this to stick a little bit more. But one of those things is these special edition episodes that we kick off on Fridays, and that one that you're referencing, sam, is the 12-Week Year. That is being co-hosted by Michelle.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, that one. I am really interested in reading that book. I haven't read that. That's not on my shelf currently, so it will be so that I can listen in, which is going to be really exciting. So I love that. But all right. So Happiness Activity Number 11, which is in Chapter 9 of this book, which Chapter 9 is Taking Care of your Body and your Soul, which sounds lovely to me, and Happiness Activity Number 11 is Practicing Religion and Spirituality.
Speaker 2:
And so, before anyone goes, oh gosh, we're talking about religion today. Like you know, it's touchy sometimes a touchy subject. I think there's a quote she's got at the beginning of this that I really loved, right, she says that religious beliefs can't be, you know, empirically tested or anything like that, right from a scientific standpoint. But it doesn't mean that the consequences of having religious beliefs, particularly participating in religious life or searching for the sacred, cannot be studied. And so what she's talking about in relation to happiness here is the consequences of the results of people who participate in religion or spirituality.
Speaker 2:
You know, just looking at kind of the broader divine in whatever context that means for you. And there's a lot of interesting data that she starts this chapter with about how people are healthier who participate in. There's a lot of scientific studies around that people are generally happier, healthier, who do participate in some kind of you know, religion, spirituality, looking for something bigger, even if you don't label it maybe the way like mainstream cultures do or broader religious groups do, but participating in beliefs, in conversation in community with people who have similar beliefs and thoughts and processes than you is really beneficial. And layering on having kind of a broader look at the divine or whatever however you label that God, etc. Those do have a benefit for people who this is one of their top ones, that really matters to them.
Speaker 1:
This one was definitely in my tops, and so I want to start the episode by sharing that. I don't necessarily think that using the word religion is the right word for the chapter, but I'm not the author, so what I mean by that is that, to me, religion is about rules, and anyone that is listening to this if you know me as a human being and as a friend, you know how absolutely critical uber most top, number one important thing in my life is my faith and my relationship with God, and so when we kicked off this chapter or started thinking about it, I really wanted to make it clear that this isn't about rules and religion as rules. This is about relationship and faith in something beyond what you can't see, touch or feel of just today. And in this book remember it was written by a psychologist, and so this is a book about facts, about research, about just truth, and so one of the things that she says that kicks off the truth of this chapter. It's important to think about this, especially because we are not doing this episode to convert your thoughts about anything other than getting your thoughts into a healthier place, a happier place and a place where you are moving towards something, not running away from something, and so in the book, the author says that there have been studies that have shown that relative to non-religious folks. So again, let me phrase that in such a way that says it's not about religion in the sense of laws and going to a building. We're talking about people that have a faith versus people that don't have a faith in some higher being or power. Studies have shown relative to non-religious folks, those active in their religions or faith okay, live longer with a variety of diseases and are healthier in general. For example, if you're having serious cardiac surgery and receive strength and comfort from your faith, you'll be almost three times more likely to be alive six months later. Like that's astounding to think that your health, your happiness, can come from what I call relationship, not religious and rules, but a relationship and with your faith, and so for me, this is everything that drives my life.
Speaker 1:
I think one thing that this book does not talk about for those that are listening, who might be faith-filled people is there is a distinct difference between happiness and joy. They're not the same word, they don't mean the same thing, and yet sometimes they get interchanged one another, but joy and happiness are both combined in a sense, of how we have purpose in life. If you don't have purpose and you don't have meaning we talked about this, I think, last week, or maybe the week before what makes life worth living? If you don't have goals and you don't have experiences, you don't have people around you that you like being around. Isn't even that the center of what we talk about? A lot, sam, about Ikigai, which is not religion, it's a Japanese concept about living out the center of your purpose, which is doing things you're good at, that you like doing with people you like being around and making a difference in the world for the better, and not just waiting for Friday or dreading Monday.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, exactly, and she kind of peels apart what this is. And when she uses the term religion, she's talking about organized religions, things you can label on their clear sets of rules and guidelines and things that you should follow, and then spirituality, which she defines as search for the sacred. So when we're talking about religion, spirituality and the chapter, we're talking about this very, very, very broad topic of you're in search of something greater than yourself and you're practicing it in whatever way that's practicing it for you. But the things that she talks about heavily and came through as a two big takeaways for me is these things drive happiness, because one, they give you a community of people.
Speaker 2:
We are human beings, are social creatures. Even if you're an introvert, we need other people, especially when times are tough, when we hit tragedy, when we hit illness, when we hit things that are rough or just knock us off kilter. You need that community and a lot of times, religion, spirituality give you that. There is a community around that and that is so very important. And the other thing is what you're just saying, denise, is this meaning in life, a lot of times that helps us step outside. You know, like the thing that's amazing about human beings is that we are consciously conscious of ourselves. We know that we exist right, we're able to step outside of ourselves and think about ourselves.
Speaker 2:
You know, in this like existential type of way, and in the fact that we can do that, it's important for us to find meaning in life for a lot of different reasons, and that's the other big thing that spirituality or religion gives us is sometimes it's the boxed up answers that you find in religion hey, here's the, here's the protocol we've got and sometimes it's your own personal search and you know more of a spiritual sense. But it gives you that sense of you know the two big things of community and meaning.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I think it's important to point out that, for some of you listening, sometimes religion hurts people, sometimes people hurt people, because religions are made up of groups of people and by nature, we're all humans, and so I think it's important to not get so caught up in thinking that religion will make you happy. The action, the verb, the word make religion won't make you happy. Religious experiences or being in community with others can sustain your happiness, and so, in fact, one of Scott's favorite books is Victor Frankl's book Man's Search for Meaning. I think he's referenced that before on some different episodes.
Speaker 1:
This is about meaning in life. In fact, the author says that, even beyond negative or traumatic life events, when our days are merely ordinary, religion and spirituality undoubtedly help us find meaning in life. Why do we need meaning? Because we need to feel we matter, that our suffering and our hard work aren't futile and that our life has purpose. So it's almost as if in this chapter, as we start to come closer to the end of the book, that you know, life isn't always about being happy. There will be days when you don't feel happy or when there are circumstances that sort of impact your ability to be happy, but this chapter talks about the benefits that spirituality and religious experiences and community have, and the book actually does a really good job around 232 or so in the book describing the definition of what is spirituality versus what is religion, because those are also two things that are not mutually exclusively the same. It's sort of like happiness and joy. They're two words that go together.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, absolutely, and I thought it was really interesting in that quote that you're saying right is like why do we need to find meaning? Right, it's because we need to feel that we matter, we need to feel a sense of control over our fates, we need to be able to justify our actions, we need reasons to focus beyond ourselves and we need a sense of meaning that fuel our self-worth. And when I think about right, like what is spirituality and what is religion, it is ultimately trying to answer those questions. Right, why do we suffer? Why do you know what when we don't have control? Why, what is that? What's the answer there? Right, because the you know.
Speaker 2:
I think anybody who lives knows that. You know, to live is to go through a lot. Right, to live is to suffer is a quote. Right, like to live is to experience so many things that rock the foundation of the boxes your brain's been putting you in. Right, your brain's trying to we're supercomputers, trying to catalog everything into oh, it's this or that, it's whatever, like that's. That helps our brain organize itself, and so when those things happen, it knocks us into this existential space of Well, okay, this doesn't fit into my box, this doesn't fit into something that's easy and neat and makes sense. So then, reaching for something and having something greater than yourself to reach to can give you a sense of happiness, finding that meaning, finding that purpose. I think that to me, that's a really beautiful thing, and we see that over and over again with folks. Something happens and it's like why did this happen? Why did this happen? Why am I doing the thing that I'm doing? I'm justifying the action that I took. It's because, oh because I believe this, because I have this set of values, I have this set of thought processes. To me it's super easy or super interesting.
Speaker 2:
She talks, in this chapter too, about seeking meaning and purpose and gives some suggestions on how to do that. She talks about pursuing goals that are harmonious. We just talked about goals that are within reach. Having a coherent life scheme, making sure that there's consistency across things. Don't have conflicting things might be a problem for you. Creativity, focusing in on spending time in the arts, the humanities, the sciences, self-discovery those are some good strategies to do with that Powerful meaning and this was interesting as sometimes there's powerful meaning in anguish and trauma. Suffering can lead to post-traumatic growth, spiritual growth, things like that. Finding that meaning and purpose even in the bad things, strong emotional experiences like comfort and support and connection and things like that, then really working to develop your faith as well. What does that mean for you? What definitions do you hold? True, we think about finding that purpose, finding that meaning. There's some things you can find it in these suggestions. If I think about my own life experiences, absolutely found purpose and meaning in every single one of those things, at different times depending on what's happening.
Speaker 1:
I think for each person, the way in which you navigate this chapter or this happiness activity or this relevance in your life is going to take on its own unique definition. Just like every snowflake is different, every human being in this world was different, but we were all created. If you have a faith in the image of God, this chapter talks about the power of prayer. As one example, if I go back to what I said earlier when we started the episode, which is in religion, you might attend some formal service where prayers are reciting words. The key is how personal do those words become into your own life? I recall a couple of months ago I, very young age, grew up Catholic and then left the Catholic Church and went into a non-denominational church. So I don't really remember a lot about growing up Catholic. But I'm a huge fan of a television show called the Chosen, which is a free television show. In fact, my family and I are investors in the show. I highly recommend it. It's one of the very best well-produced, scripted, choreographed scored. Everything about this television show is pristinely amazing. But the point of it is that the key actor in this particular television show is Catholic. I follow him on social media and one day he was doing like a rosary prayer, which in the Catholic religion and I certainly don't want to misrepresent it because I'm not Catholic, but in the Catholic religion you have these beads that look like a necklace. If you're not familiar, then there's like this one sentence of a prayer what you do is imagine that the sentence has five words to it. You touch the first bead and you emphasize the first word of that sentence. Then, when you touch the second bead, you emphasize the second word of the sentence, but you're still reading the same sentence, but emphasizing the second word, the next one, you emphasize the third word, and so on and so on. What ends up happening is these sentences take on different meanings and impact your mind and your subconscious in these different ways. What I noticed when I was watching this experience that this actor was going through and he wasn't doing it as an actor, it was his personal social media page. It became very emotional for him, like at one point you could see physically that his mind, his heart, something shifted, like he started to have a tear in his eye, but it was because it took this repetition over and over of saying the same thing that brought that to him.
Speaker 1:
Now, for me, prayer for me is probably super unconventional, like I'll just, in the middle of the day, just start talking out loud to God and telling him what I think. And I recall a couple of weeks ago I was really struggling with something, sam, like I was struggling with something and I literally was having an argument, and out loud probably people would have thought it was crazy argument verbally, out loud, about feeling like I was talking to my best friend about something that was hurting me and I had to get it out of my system and that was my way of praying. Some people will go and have a very formal way of praying, but, whatever it is, the book says that prayer is your own form of communicating with something that is beyond yourself, and the researchers suggest that if you dedicate just a period of time each day, you may feel that you have more of a presence with something that is divine. You may pray spontaneously, like I do, just. You know I've just. If something comes into my mind, then I do it. But if you have some sort of a way of infusing this into your day, then you are doing what we said, I think, last week or the week before, which is you're taking yourself away from something you're repelling so that you can move towards something that you're really wanting.
Speaker 1:
For me personally, I start every day by reading a devotional. It's very short, it's like four or five sentences long. It's accompanied by a bible verse so I can go deeper, just like on what's on your bookshelf. The idea is read a book, dive deep. For me, in my morning I read a devotional, then I read the bible verse. It goes with it. I dive deep and then I journal it, I write something down about it and then I reflect on it and I think how does that impact me? If you follow me on my personal social media, then you know I also write about what I thought about and what I lived through in these things that I wrote.
Speaker 1:
That actually resulted in a book, my very first ever book that I wrote and published. It was never intended initially for me to publish the book I published. I was going to publish a book on coaching. That's what I knew. I've been a coach for 18 years, worked in leadership development for just as long.
Speaker 1:
I thought my first book was going to be a practical business book, but through my time in praying and through my faith, I decided that my very first book wasn't going to be that at all. It ended up being a book called 12 days, which is an exploration of the lyrics of a secular Christmas song called the 12 days of Christmas. You know, partridge in a paratree, but what I found is in that ordinariness, or the mundaneness of thinking that somebody gave 12 gifts to somebody for Christmas. Could there be more meaning than just those 12 gifts? So this episode is probably coming out. I'm going to guess like we're right around almost getting ready to be summertime, so you're not thinking about Christmas right now. But if you can think about that, there is influence in having your health and well-being grounded in something that is beyond what you can see, what you could touch, what you could feel and what you can hear.
Speaker 2:
These things will help you again, not make you happy, but can sustain your happiness, especially in times of difficulty yeah, yeah, definitely, and I like the way she the last activity she gives inside of this one is finding the sacred in ordinary life, right, which reminds me of like going back to savoring life, joys and things like that.
Speaker 2:
But this is kind of taking it to that spiritual or religious plane of you know. I really can walk through life and experience something that is really connected to something greater, whether that's a greater being or greater, you know, just energy or whatever term you use, right, but that finding that in that ordinary and I think that that's you know, there's something magical about that and and something really, you know some people would call it divine, right, or you know whatever in that space, but you know being able to find that in the everyday, in every day have you ever had an experience like you see a sunset and you just are in awe and then you want to take a picture of it or like, just make sure it's captured in your mind?
Speaker 1:
or have you ever been to like the Grand Canyon or somewhere that's so amazing? Or you live in Pennsylvania, so you've probably at least been close to or seen I used to live near Niagara Falls and to be able to see the beauty and the majesty of the waterfalls, and sometimes it's in these things that you look at that you think man, god, is awesome, and if you believe in God, then you believe that that was created by something that man didn't create. And if you don't believe in God this chapter isn't about converting your belief in that one way or the other, but sometimes there will be little flickers in your day that might be ordinary, that just remind you that there's something perhaps that could be bigger and out there, that if you have purpose, if you have meaning, if you're living your life for something outside of your own self, even if it's to love other people, how important that is. For me, it truly is about something way much bigger than that. It's about my faith and something much bigger than that. But for you, whatever that may mean for you as the listener, to find happiness by practicing some sort of meaning and purpose that's beyond yourself is the key.
Speaker 1:
Next week we're going to talk about something that's sort of parallel. We're going to be talking about meditation, sort of mindfulness. Sam and I are both certified in different programs in mindfulness. Mindfulness mindfulness is another one that's in the top of my list. It's about not being full in your mind. It's about emptying your mind in many ways and it's about being able to clear space so that you have clarity and you have peace and you have balance and you have some settling of like the vibrations that's in your body.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I'm looking forward. Next week is the happiness activity number 12 taking care of your body and soul, and That'll be an interesting conversation too. So definitely join us next week as we talk about the last happiness activity. I can't believe we're on number 12 already.
Speaker 1:
Crazy, I cannot believe that we're almost to the end of this. So there's gonna be maybe one more episode after episode 12. So, friends, if you're listening along, remember this is a theme. 2024 is a theme on Seeking, embracing and living a life of happiness, and so this is just book number one. So if you haven't yet purchased the next book, the next book is totally different. It's a different format, it's a different author. It's called solve for happy by Mogadat.
Speaker 1:
So, scott, can you please help us by putting a link in the show notes of this show for our listeners? For solve for happy. That's going to be the next book up on the docket. We've got some really good ones coming this year. Sam, I'm excited to continue in this theme. Last year, we really talked about cementing good habits, getting rid of bad habits. Now we're really getting into how do you maintain, sustain and thrive in a life of happiness. So next week we're going to be talking about meditation, and in a couple weeks from now, we're going to solve for happy. So, at least for today, my name is Denise Russo. I was happy to be here with you today, sam, and this has been another episode of what's on your bookshelf.