How does our society’s definition of happiness fall short of what truly fulfills us? Join me for a thought-provoking conversation with Julie Cowles, a former therapist who has transitioned into a spiritual life coach. Inspired by Stephanie Harrison's "The New Happy," we dissect how cultural conditioning and individualism contribute to our feelings of dissatisfaction and emphasize the essential role of building relationships and tapping into inner wisdom to find genuine happiness.
Is happiness something you have to chase, or might it already be within you? We explore the idea that happiness resides in the present moment. Julie and I break down the foundations of true happiness—self-love, self-acceptance, and self-compassion. Through mindfulness, you can capture the small moments of joy in everyday life. We also touch on recognizing your personal values, setting boundaries, and overcoming the inner critic.
This episode underscores the power of community, generosity, and forgiveness as essential components of personal happiness. We shed light on the societal reluctance to ask for help and reframe it as an enriching opportunity for all involved. We also touch on the importance of grounding yourself in nature to achieve a state of calm. We wrap up with a powerful message of love and gratitude, encouraging you to connect with your inherent love to experience the joy of life. Join us for an enriching episode that promises to change the way you think about happiness.
“Self love is all you need to be happy. Imagine how amazing your life would be if you created an internal world in which you were always good enough, always wanted, always welcome, no matter what others are doing or saying on the outside. A world in which you allowed yourself to make mistakes without shaming you. A world in which you weren’t responsible for everybody else’s wants and needs and feelings. . . . A world in which you were always allowed to love and forgive yourself and offer yourself compassion no matter how badly you messed up. A world in which you saw every difficulty as a learning experience. A world in which it was okay for you to say no, to set boundaries, to have your own preferences, your own values, your own priorities. . . . A world in which you took time and space for yourself to dream, to connect with others with similar interests and values. . . . A world in
How does our society’s definition of happiness fall short of what truly fulfills us? Join me for a thought-provoking conversation with Julie Cowles, a former therapist who has transitioned into a spiritual life coach. Inspired by Stephanie Harrison's "The New Happy," we dissect how cultural conditioning and individualism contribute to our feelings of dissatisfaction and emphasize the essential role of building relationships and tapping into inner wisdom to find genuine happiness.
Is happiness something you have to chase, or might it already be within you? We explore the idea that happiness resides in the present moment. Julie and I break down the foundations of true happiness—self-love, self-acceptance, and self-compassion. Through mindfulness, you can capture the small moments of joy in everyday life. We also touch on recognizing your personal values, setting boundaries, and overcoming the inner critic.
This episode underscores the power of community, generosity, and forgiveness as essential components of personal happiness. We shed light on the societal reluctance to ask for help and reframe it as an enriching opportunity for all involved. We also touch on the importance of grounding yourself in nature to achieve a state of calm. We wrap up with a powerful message of love and gratitude, encouraging you to connect with your inherent love to experience the joy of life. Join us for an enriching episode that promises to change the way you think about happiness.
“Self love is all you need to be happy. Imagine how amazing your life would be if you created an internal world in which you were always good enough, always wanted, always welcome, no matter what others are doing or saying on the outside. A world in which you allowed yourself to make mistakes without shaming you. A world in which you weren’t responsible for everybody else’s wants and needs and feelings. . . . A world in which you were always allowed to love and forgive yourself and offer yourself compassion no matter how badly you messed up. A world in which you saw every difficulty as a learning experience. A world in which it was okay for you to say no, to set boundaries, to have your own preferences, your own values, your own priorities. . . . A world in which you took time and space for yourself to dream, to connect with others with similar interests and values. . . . A world in
Hello and welcome to the podcast Emotional Intelligence, your greatest asset and key to success. I'm your host, dr Jamie Carlaccio, coming to you from the Greater New Haven, connecticut area, as a positive intelligence, or PQ coach. I'm committed to helping people develop both emotional intelligence and mental fitness. You'll come to regard problems as situations that help you learn and grow. Pq is a way of being and doing in the world that enables you to develop and sustain a positive relationship with yourself and others, at home, at work and everywhere in between. Please subscribe to this podcast and tap the like button so more people can enjoy the benefits of PQ. And now here's the show. Hey, hello everybody, and welcome to the podcast Emotional Intelligence. Thank you very much for being here with us today, and I'm very excited.
Speaker 1:
We're going to talk about happiness, and I think that's a fraught term. I don't think that we really maybe agree on what it means to be happy, and so my guest, julie Cowles, and I are going to talk about that. But before we get into that, I want to just introduce her. She's wonderful. I just met her recently and she's in Berkeley, california At least that's where your phone number says you're from, am I right? Yes, okay, good. So this is. This is Julie. Hold on here. I just lost your intro, so let me pull it up again. Begin. And.
Speaker 1:
Julie is a former therapist turned spiritual life coach, intuitive guide and a writer dedicated to helping individuals reconnect with their true, authentic selves, and I think that's what we try to do on this podcast as well, julie. She has a degree in psychology from the University of Michigan and a Master of Social Work from UCLA. She has extensive experience working in the US and abroad with vulnerable populations, including those with serious mental illnesses, addictions and traumatized children and their parents. That must be incredibly profound work, julie, and after an intense spiritual awakening in 2020, she now focuses her expertise on coaching women and other healers using a variety of modalities, including psychological tools, guided meditations, contemplative journaling, tarot and plant medicine.
Speaker 1:
And, julie, I really wish you were here with me in Connecticut or that I was with you in Berkeley. We have so much in common. Her newest offering is a group program called Midlife Mystic for midlife moms on a spiritual journey to reclaim their clarity, happiness and sovereignty. Julie is currently in training to become an ordained minister at a plant medicine church called Sacred Garden Community in Berkeley, california, where she resides with her 16-year-old daughter, husband and two kitty cats, and I will put Julie's information in the show notes so that you will have that. And Julie, julie, julie, thank you for coming. How are you doing today?
Speaker 2:
Good. Thank you so much for having me on here. Very glad to be in this space.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah. So I'm just going to start with a couple of comments. I believe I mentioned it last week. There's a book called the New Happy, and the woman is Stephanie Harrison. She just published it this year. The book is literally brand new and I wanted to just read a couple of things from the book because I think that might be a way to start our conversation.
Speaker 1:
So she said that this old happy apparently that the paradigm we're kind of stuck in, and she's trying to get us out of that paradigm and show us a new way, and that's what the book is about. But she said, from a very early age we're conditioned for these old beliefs about our choices and our behavior and we rarely question them or challenge them. And then we think they are the truth. And then she says what's really interesting and I believe this is true most people blame themselves for their unhappiness and we often use words like should we should on ourselves, right, I should be happy, I should feel grateful, I should blah, blah, blah, and so we think there's something wrong with us, when really what's wrong, she says, is that it's our culture, it's this kind of cultural conditioning that's problematic. And she also says that it feels inevitable. She says even if you can name it, how can you move past it? And what should you be seeking out instead? And I think one of the most important words there is seek, and we'll talk about where you're seeking that happiness.
Speaker 1:
And she says and this is also important individualism is a core contributor to the old happy, and if you live in the United States you know that we are a very individualist culture. It's every person for themselves, get ahead at all costs. It's very competitive and capitalism and the whole capitalism ethos has really taught us that. So everyone's compelled to look out for themselves, motivated to prioritize our own wants and needs, and oftentimes I know I don't speak for everybody here treating people as a means to an end and our culture, you know, that's not how we're going to thrive and I do believe and I've seen evidence a lot of people just aren't happy, aren't satisfied. Mental illness has gone through the roof and so has alcohol and drug addiction and other substance use addictions.
Speaker 1:
So being separate means we have to carry all these burdens by ourselves and there's no support system to sort of pick us up when we're struggling. And so being separate limits our ability to foster and deepen relationships with others, and that is our greatest source of happiness. And so I think a lot of people feel lonely. I know, during the pandemic, when people were cooped up, they went berserk, and I don't blame them. They weren't able to meet people and go anywhere, and so being separate is also a way it separates us from ourselves.
Speaker 1:
So we're not only separated and disconnected from others, but we've lost the connection with that deep inner self and, as we'd say in positive intelligence terms, that's our inner sage or that, maybe that light or that divine wisdom, or whatever you like to call it. It's something not you, but it is part of you anyway. So it is you and it's not you. It's not your egoic self, it's your divine self. And so she says that's the shift we need to make, is really embracing not only ourselves but others in community and interdependence. And she also reminds us that we all have gifts. We are human and that's what makes us special and people love us, despite or because of our faults and vulnerabilities and our talent. What can we do? What can we offer other people? And the wisdom what we have learned. So I just wanted to start off with that, and so, julie, do you have any comments on anything about that based on your own experience in psychology or coaching.
Speaker 2:
Yes, definitely. Before we jump into that, though, I just wanted to recognize the sacredness of this space, calling in a sense of sacredness and just recognizing that this discussion is very sacred around happiness, around what we want and what we need, and so just taking a moment to come back to ourselves, to really a piece of a nugget of truth that they could take home with them to embody, yeah, and just really calling in our ancestors, guides, whoever you believe in, and tapping into that sacredness that lives within us, our higher selves, if you want to call that, the universe, god.
Speaker 2:
Inner sage the divine yes, inner sage, and yeah, and the reason that you're here is to gain something and really remember something about yourself that this happiness is your birthright, that we all have this ability to be happy. It's not just some people are happy and you're stuck not being happy if you feel you're an unhappy person. Yeah, basically, all the points you made are points that I completely believe in, that we can learn, you know, that we can seek it out and prioritize this happiness, that we can learn, that we can seek it out and prioritize this happiness, that we can invest in it, that we can believe in it, and that's how we will find it. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah. Well, I think belief is important, that we can. I think a lot of people and I will include myself in this category I used to think happy was out there and that if I had the right guy or the right husband, or the right this or the right money in my bank account, or the right job or the right friends or the right place to live, that that's what would make me happy, or the right place to live, that that's what would make me happy. And so there's a phrase I'll be happy when, or I'll be happy if and if X happens, or if X doesn't happen. And so when we have to stick happiness out there as something to be gotten on a particular timeline, to be gotten on a particular timeline. There's never going to be a when, because we always live in the present moment, and you talked about calling in and reaching inside, and so happiness is what resides in here.
Speaker 2:
It's not going to be out there somewhere to be out there somewhere Exactly and this is really the work that I think is lacking in our country and a lot of places is this connection to self, connection to something deeper than our ego, than our external wants, and to really recognize that we can find this, this the sense of happiness, the sense of contentment within us, and and really defining what happiness means for you, because it's just a broad, nebulous term, right Like, what is happiness to you? What do you want to feel in your life? What do you want to prioritize? What life? What do you want to prioritize? What are your values? Are you living your values? And really, for me, happiness boils down to self-love, to having self-acceptance, self-compassion, self-forgiveness and really learning about those things. What does it mean? To fully love yourself, no matter what, no matter what mistakes you've made, no matter what's going on in your life, and from that place we can build happiness.
Speaker 2:
Um the beautiful little things that happen day to day, the momentary um bits of contentment that we can tap into um when we, when we're present. So that's a big important part of being happy is being mindful, is being present, being aware. You can't um feel happiness if you're not aware of it and in your body. It's like making your coffee and watching the steam rise, or looking out a window and looking at flowers or trees, adding those little bits of contentment into your cup throughout the day.
Speaker 1:
Yeah you know, I've been staring at the azaleas where I live and they're so pink and so rich, and I love spring because everything's in bloom and I am also a sports official, so when I'm out on the field on a day hopefully not a rainy one all I can think of is I am so lucky that I am out on this field serving athletes to the best of my ability. Who wouldn't want to get paid to stand on lovely grass, surrounded by lovely trees, surrounded by lovely young men and women who are trying their best to be athletes? I do baseball and softball, so I feel really lucky. And I want to go back to this idea of loving yourself, Because you're right.
Speaker 1:
If we're not mindful and right in the moment, we've got a foot in the past and a foot in the future, and neither of them are even here right now. But if we don't love who we are and that's a hard ask, I will say, because it took me five decades to get there but that's where it has to start, I think, Because if I don't love myself and I don't love things about myself, then I'm always going to be looking externally for validation or happiness. So I think you hit the hit the nail on the head with that.
Speaker 2:
Yes. So, if you don't mind, I have a short paragraph that basically encapsulates the self-love. Okay, it's kind of like a little meditation. So self-love is all you need to be happy.
Speaker 2:
Imagine how amazing your life would be if you created a world in which you were always good enough, always wanted, always welcome, no matter what others are doing or saying on the outside. A world in which you are allowed to make mistakes without shaming you. A world in which you weren't responsible for everyone else's wants and needs and feelings. Imagine a world in which you didn't feel guilty for feeling good when someone else felt bad. Feel guilty for feeling good when someone else felt bad. Imagine a world in which you were always allowed to love and forgive yourself and offer yourself compassion, no matter how badly you messed up.
Speaker 2:
A world in which you saw every difficulty as a learning experience. Imagine a world in which it was okay for you to say no, to set boundaries, to have your own preferences, your own values, your own priorities, to set your own parameters of success. Imagine a world in which you took time and space for yourself, to dream, to connect with others with similar interests and values. Imagine a world in which you helped others by sharing your gifts and your truths, a world in which you felt safe enough to be authentic, to be vulnerable and ask for help, to just be you. Imagine that this world, this is a world that you could actually create if you believed in it, prioritized it, invested in it. Yeah, that's basically for me what happiness is Just loving ourselves, a sense of it's okay in the world, you know, just trusting yourself, trusting others in the world, that things are going to work out, even when there's some difficulties.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, so everything that you just read encapsulates positive intelligence. I have been doing this podcast for almost a year now and I've talked about the judge. That's between our ears, you know, and I call it a ventriloquist because it may sound like us, but it isn't us, it's not the true self. It's this judge who, you know, we've come to believe, and telling us we're not good enough, telling us we're stupid, telling us we can't possibly do that, or we judge other people, or we judge circumstances, and then you know, talking about that, you set the parameters for your success. We don't have to be the hyper achiever, which is one of our saboteurs. We can learn that we don't have to please everybody hyperachiever, which is one of our saboteurs. We can learn that we don't have to please everybody else, because people pleasing is also one of our saboteurs, and we don't have to be victims of our circumstances, and so on and so forth.
Speaker 1:
There are nine accomplices and you basically touched on all of those, and that's what positive intelligence teaches us to do. You know, we have two basic neural pathways. We have the one where the judge and his accomplices live, or her accomplices, and that's kind of what I call the rabbit hole, and then we have this sage path, and so positive intelligence teaches us to go down that sage path, to have empathy for ourselves and others, to innovate when we've made a mistake and take away some lessons, and navigate our way through life and find the path that works for us, that doesn't harm other people and ourselves. So I love that. Did you write that?
Speaker 2:
Yes, I get a lot of channeled writing, oh wow, will you share that?
Speaker 1:
Can I add that to the show notes?
Speaker 2:
Yes, sure, I have lots of it. Okay, so what helped me actually to tap into some of this happiness was, honestly, plant medicine such as psilocybin, even just microdoses of it. Taking that, I started to receive these messages before I never used to write and now I write every day journals and journals. There's something that sometimes helps us get past that inner critic, using in a responsible and a ceremonial type way with intention that I found very helpful. Ceremonial type way with intention. That I found very helpful. And I feel like what you were talking about, the inner critic, is very important for women to address in marginalized communities in general, that women generally see themselves as less competent, they underestimate themselves.
Speaker 2:
They feel the need to people please. This is really why I'm interested in working with women and midlife women, especially because at midlife also, it's a difficult time. It's a time of transition, where you're getting older, the body is changing for women and there's a lot of messages from society about getting your anti-aging cream and um feeling invisible right, and so I really want women to see this time as a time to reinvent yourself and to see tap into this happiness.
Speaker 2:
It doesn't have to go downhill from here, like, as you mentioned, took me 50 years to figure out, too, about this self-love thing. And but once you get it, it doesn't matter how long it takes. If you invest in it, like, really take the time you're going, it's going to be so worth it. It's so magical and beautiful to know that you can count on yourself instead of always having the negativity in there.
Speaker 1:
Right. And you know, even though it has been a long time, I don't regret it insofar as I've been able to learn from it, and one of the things that I like to do when I help people is remember that I've been over the coals of pain and trauma. And so, because of that, and because I've been able to learn from it and process it, I hold my hand out to the next person who needs help getting over those hot coals, and the promise is that you will get over them. You just have to ask for help. You need to want the help. You can stand at the other side of it and wonder if you can cross them, or you can say I need some help, and then we hold out our hands and say yeah.
Speaker 1:
And speaking of hot coals, I was thinking about this. I've been thinking about this subject for a long time. There's something about what if? What if I'm having? What if my daughter is really sick and dying? Or what if my dad just died in a car crash? Or what if my brother X or you know what? About all of the things going on in the world that are tragic? How can I be happy? And one thing is it's not a zero sum game. In other words, I can be happy and still care for you and love you and pray for you or whatever, and sympathize and empathize. And I know somebody whose daughter is waiting for a transplant of a major organ and I mentioned that I'm going to be doing this podcast and she went into a discussion of how difficult it has been for her to watch her daughter suffer and wait for this very important, life-saving transplant. And then I wondered how can we be happy in the face of personal tragedy?
Speaker 2:
Yes, I mean, this is something that we all face.
Speaker 2:
When it's happening to us, we feel that we're being singled out, that, um, we're the only ones going through it, when, in actuality, whatever you're facing you know, divorce, separation, sick child, um, um, financial issues there's millions of people going through that same thing, and so that is something that can help people too is to tap into that, knowing that this is the human condition old age, sickness, death, as the Buddhists say and so learning how to deal with it in a way that adds to our growth, to our compassion and to our desire to help others, as you mentioned Right, like seeing it even in the moment. Well, I hope to learn something from this and I hope to share what I'm learning with other people going through the same experience, and community is so important Reaching out to others who are going through the same thing, support groups or really talking about it Because if we're sitting in our corners alone on our phones, we're just going to feel more isolated and lost when, in actuality, where there's so many people that want to help and that you can reach out to.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, people do want to help, don't they out to? Yeah, people do want to help, don't they?
Speaker 2:
Yes.
Speaker 1:
I love it when people ask for help. It's like, yes, of course I'll help you. Yeah, I hate to see people trying to go it alone. Well, yeah.
Speaker 2:
But I feel like that is generally, that is our natural state to want to help, and it's something that we forget somehow that when we're in the middle of needing something, especially as women, again, we don't want to bother anybody. We're used to being the caregivers and really seeing it as it can be a gift to somebody else, to allow them to help you to, to support you to. You know, because if you think about times that you really helped somebody or offered them compassion or maybe you had a little extra money to give them, it's not something that you feel bad about, right, generally. It's something that makes us feel good when we think about it later in life, like, wow, I was really able to help that person. Yeah, so just remembering that if you're needing help, that it's not a shameful thing to need help.
Speaker 1:
Right. Think of it as giving another person an opportunity to do this.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
As opposed to putting them out Right, and it's a way for people to grow.
Speaker 2:
I feel like that is a problem in our country, especially around giving and generosity, and it doesn't have to be just money, but giving of our time, giving of compliments, giving of patience. There's so many ways we can give and so many people who need, and we have so much in this country. What we're lacking is what you said is this connection to deep connection to self, to spirit, to these entities or energies that live within us and around us that we can tap into, such as generosity, compassion, forgiveness, love.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, Forgiveness is a good one. We often ruminate on our mistakes and our character flaws, and I know that when I was doing that I was A never in the present and B I was really navel-gazing. I was only thinking about myself. Other people were not going around thinking, oh Jamie's got a lot of flaws. I was doing that and so when I could get out of myself and be with other people and notice that we all have the same kinds of things going on in our lives.
Speaker 1:
They may not be perfectly the same, but we all have the same kinds of emotions and we all cry and we all kind of get lonely sometimes or whatever. And sometimes we can be angry and say something we didn't mean. But that doesn't make us bad people, it doesn't make us unlovable, it doesn't make us not compassionate, it makes us human. And when we're in community we can be open and talk about it and share that. We can, you know, be open and talk about it and share that, you know. And when something difficult happens and you share it, you find out you're not alone.
Speaker 2:
Yes, and you help others to know that they're not alone, and anything that happens if you make a mistake, or like coming on here and you're saying, oh, my thing isn't quite right on Facebook, that inspires me to do like I can do a podcast. It's okay If you don't have everything exactly perfect. Um, and yeah, just allowing ourselves to be human is so important and really, what you mentioned about getting out of our our heads, I think is important too, and just so self-focused can really block our happiness. When you're more in a flow state, finding the things that you're interested in, that you're passionate about, like you're, like you're, um, sporting, coaching, um, and just allowing the flow being in music, singing that's when we find moments of happiness or just being out in nature is such a way of getting out of our heads and walking and just enjoying the beauty around us. Yeah, yeah, letting go my son does that.
Speaker 1:
He goes to this park and he climbs to the very top it's called East Rock Park in New Haven and he finds his joy in nature. And he comes to the very top it's called East Rock Park in New Haven and he finds his joy in nature and he comes back a changed person. He might go out in a bad mood, he comes back chill and Zen.
Speaker 2:
Well, science shows that right that just being out in nature is healing. It calms our nervous system. It's like a type of meditation, so that's definitely high on the list for happiness. I would recommend anybody being in nature, you know.
Speaker 1:
Yeah yeah. And feeling rooted and grounded right. So if we talk about the energy, the main energy system of our chakras, the root chakra, if we're not grounded the rest of them, you know it all has to work. You know the connection to source all the way down to the root. And one day when I was at that park running, I just took off my shoes and socks and stood by a tree on the roots and just grounded myself just to feel like I was part of that tree.
Speaker 2:
Yes, because we are part of of the tree, we are part of nature that we forget and, being out in it, we realize it's vast and we're just a small entity and we don't have to take ourselves so seriously.
Speaker 2:
Yes, uh, yeah, so that's important too, just letting go of the seriousness of all this and knowing we can just play a little more with this life experiment see what you like, what you don't like, um turn the music up, dance in your living room yeah, just I think that's a thing too when you get in midlife or a lot of people are stuck in these patterns and the way you've done things and some newness, just getting out and trying to remember what you liked as a kid, or just this world is for us to explore and have fun in and just learning to have a nice running commentary as you're exploring that it doesn't have to be perfect, trying different things. Oh, I didn't like that. That didn't work. No, I'm sad. One day that's you, that's being human.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, it'll pass riding the waves and yeah, you can sit in the sadness, you don't have to push it away. And there's again that old happy of I should be happy, I'm not a paraplegic or I'm not sick, or I don't have X disease, or I don't live in poverty or whatever. That doesn't mean you can't be happy and we don't have to chase it. But it is a choice, you know. It is a choice to say, yeah, I'm gonna go ground myself, I'm gonna be mindful, I'm gonna enjoy this cup of coffee, every single taste, every sip. Or I am gonna go stare at azaleas because they're so beautiful. Yes, that's.
Speaker 2:
I think it is just finding your unique recipe, like writing down the things that work. Stare at azaleas because they're so beautiful. Yes, that's. I think it is just finding your unique recipe, like writing down the things that work for you. Maybe it's just standing out in nature, maybe it's breath work or tapping affirmations. There's so many ways to tap into this happiness and joy and seeing it. As I mentioned before, there's different levels of happiness versus this blissed out state, just little bits of contentment and you're filling your bucket with it throughout the day, and that's how you will become a happy person.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and this isn't you know. A lot of people have talked about toxic positivity. This isn't about pretending that things are okay if they're not. It's really about that. That's what the title of the podcast Happiness, is an Inside Job, and so we're out of time. We could probably talk for hours. I love this topic. I do too. I do too, and maybe we'll have you on again for a different topic another time.
Speaker 1:
But I wanted to yeah, yeah, and thank you so much for sharing your writing with us, and there are a few comments and people are writing really lovely things here about sharing the poem, or it felt like a poem to me that you wrote and just loving yourself unconditionally and how people feel like this message that we're giving is resonating with them. Thank you so much for those of you who are commenting. I really appreciate that, and so let me just pull up something that I think is fun and it only Okay. That song always makes me happy and I always dance to it.
Speaker 2:
Yes.
Speaker 1:
I love it.
Speaker 2:
I just want to leave the listeners knowing just a message that you are so loved, and just to know that there is this inherent love within you that is wanting you to be happy and just start talking to it and it's available to you and accept it right yes yes, thank you so much, julie, and many blessings on your continued journey to ordination with the plant medicine.
Speaker 1:
and thank you everybody for tuning in. If you're tuning in live and if you're watching this after, thank you for watching and comments are welcome and take care until next week, thank you.
