Live Happy Now

Accepting the difficult events in our lives is a key part of our well-being. Acceptance allows us to cultivate a sense of calm that allows us to better deal with stress. As we deal with an increasingly uncertain world, how can learning more about acceptance help increase our happiness? This week, psychologist Scott Hass, author of Why Be Happy? The Japanese Way of Acceptance talks about how ukeireru, the Japanese principle of acceptance, can help each of us during troubled times. In this episode, you’ll learn: How learning acceptance changes your response to situations. Ways to increase your practice of acceptance. How to practice acceptance as a family.

In recent years, we’ve learned a lot about the profound transformative effect that empathy can have on us. For more than a decade, this week’s guest has been on a mission to help bring those powerful lessons to children. Lysa Heslov is founder of Children Mending Hearts, an organization that combats bullying and intolerance by inspiring empathy in children using art and other programs. Her Los Angeles based program has now grown into a national movement, and tell us how it works, why it matters and what all of us can do to get more empathy in our lives. In this episode, you’ll learn: Why empathy is so important during these uncertain times. How empathy can help reduce bullying. The long-term effects of teaching children about empathy.

It’s a brand new month and it’s also a brand new season of Live Happy Now. As we start this new season Live Happy CEO Deborah Heisz and Paula Felps talk about how things changed for all of us last season, and what we can expect to see in the coming weeks and months. In this episode, you’ll learn: What we’ll be talking about this season Where you can get the Live Happy Daily Happiness How to tell us what you'd like to hear on the show.

Anxiety is something that many of us are familiar with—particularly now. But have you considered embracing it? This week’s guest, Karla McLaren, makes the case for delving into this emotion and using it as a force of energy. Her book, Embracing Anxiety: How to Access the Genius of This Vital Emotion, takes a completely new look at how anxiety can benefit us. This week, she talks about how important it is to recognize what anxiety can do for us and learn how to use it for positive effect. In this episode, you’ll learn: How anxiety can help us prepare for the future. Why procrastination is actually considered a form of anxiety. The difference between panic and anxiety.

Even before the coronavirus pandemic, Dr. Lise Van Susteren was noticing a new phenomenon: patients were often plagued by worry, disturbing and intrusive thoughts, sleep disruptions, grief and more. She identified this trend as a condition she calls emotional inflammation, and along with health writer Stacey Colino wrote a book by the same name. As it turns out, Emotional Inflammation: Discover Your Triggers and Reclaim Your Equilibrium During Anxious Times is exactly the book we need for our current situation. This week, she talks about how the pandemic has only heightened our emotional inflammation — and what we can do about it.   In this episode, you’ll learn: What is emotional inflammation and what does it do to us? How does controlling the flow of information in your life help cool emotional inflammation — and how do you do that? What is the difference between being a bystander and an upstander?

If you’ve ever had a sudden feeling of distress that triggers your fight or flight response, then you know what it’s like to have your emotions hijacked. And if that’s something you’ve experienced recently, you’re not alone. This week, clinical psychologist and mindfulness expert Dr. Shauna Shapiro returns to talk about how current times might be affecting your emotions and what practices you can use — both individually and as a family — to regulate them. In this episode, you’ll learn: What an “amygdala hijack” is and how to manage it. Why identifying your emotions can help bring calm to your life. Simple practices to help regulate your emotions.

All of us have lost something this year, and that’s affecting us whether we realize it or not. This week, we’re joined by Erin Wiley, a clinical psychotherapist and executive of The Willow Center, a counseling practice in Toledo, Ohio. She’s here to talk about the many ways our losses could be affecting us and our loved ones, and to give us tips on processing grief and coping with the changes brought by the pandemic.  In this episode, you’ll learn: Why it’s important to feel your grief as it arises Tips for coping with grief and loss How to discuss and manage loss as a family

If there was ever a year that needed a soothing soundtrack, it would be the year that we’re in now. Music has powerful healing properties, and nobody knows that better than this week’s guest. Dr. Sandi Curtis is an internationally trained music therapist who specializes in working with women and children survivors of violence. She helps survivors navigate their way through recovery with help from music, and this week she’s here to talk about how all of us can use music to help us through this challenging year.   In this episode, you’ll learn: Why music is such a powerful healing tool. What brain entrainment is and why it’s good for your mental health. How the music you listen to can change your state.

As an Emmy-winning reporter for ABC News, Adrienne Bankert has covered some of life's most tragic moments, but it has never made her lose sight of her desire to find the best in people. Her experience interviewing inspiring people, from wounded warriors to high-profile celebrities, helped her want to understand more about one of her life’s guiding principles: kindness. This week, she talks about her new book, Your Hidden Superpower: The Kindness That Makes You Unbeatable at Work and Connects You with Anyone, and explains why practicing kindness is so good for us. In this episode, you’ll learn: How kindness makes anyone unbeatable. The difference between being nice and being kind. Simple things you can do every day to practice kindness.

Since the release of his first hit single, The Remedy (I Won’t Worry), in 2002, Jason Mraz has based his musical career on sharing positive, uplifting music. On June 19, the two-time Grammy winner is releasing Look for the Good, an album that encourages us to find hope, optimism and gratitude despite the turmoil we’re experiencing this year. In this episode, Jason explains how this collection of songs came about, what he learned in the process of writing and recording this album and what he hopes every one of us takes away from it. In this episode, you’ll learn: Why he believes it’s so important to look for the good in every situation. How music can help soothe and heal us. The power of remaining positive.