Ep301: Positive Psychology - Real Science or Just Fluff?

Ep301: Positive Psychology - Real Science or Just Fluff?

Diane: ​[00:00:00] I mean, it's really how you take care of yourself and your belief system. So. What you're eating, what you're digesting, not just food and drink, but what you're watching on tv, who you spend your time with. All of that plays a role.

V: You are listening to the Free to Be Mindful podcast, where busy moms get practical tips and real talk conversations to find calm joy in a little more breathing room in everyday life. I'm Vanessa Licensed therapist, mom, coach, and a mom to a tween and toddler. Each week we get honest about motherhood and mindset helping you live with more presence, less pressure without losing your well, you know.

Here we go.

Hello and welcome to the Free To Be Mindful Podcast. I hope that you're feeling good, looking good and doing better in this world than you were yesterday. So if you're a long time listener, you are probably [00:01:00] already familiar that I record my intros after I record the interview because I think it just gives a different perspective after knowing the person so much more and having this awesome conversation.

And after we were done, I told our guest today, Diane Lang. I think that you are the blonde version of me. And we both started laughing because we just have so much overlap, in not the work that we do, but our philosophies towards the work that we do.

So let me share with you a little bit more about Diane Lang, who holds a master's degree in counseling and has been a college level educator for 25 years. She's the author of four books, including Creating Balance and Finding Happiness, Baby Steps the Path from Motherhood to Career, and Mindfully Happy Waking Up To Life. Do you see the overlap already? Her most recent book Worthy explores the Hidden Causes of Unworthiness, its deeper implications, and its connection to perfectionism [00:02:00] and control.

As a coach, educator and positive living expert, Diane has dedicated her career to helping individuals transform their lives. Her mission is to help people cultivate a sustainable positive attitude, turning them into true optimists.

And what I really appreciate of our conversation was that it was realistic. We kept it real while also discussing the power of positivity. Now, one thing before you go and change the station to another podcast, just because we're talking about positive psychology doesn't mean that things are rainbows and butterflies all of the time, and we discuss that within the interview as well.

And in case you are just listening to the interview and not viewing it, if you go later and watch it on YouTube, there are a lot of words that we say that are initials or acronym for things, and on the YouTube video, I will spell them out in case you're not as familiar, so you see the full [00:03:00] word and then you can look them up and learn more.

I really hope that you enjoy this conversation, that you get something out of it because I know as corny as it sounds, if we all do at least one thing that we heard from this specific interview, what a difference it'll make for our future.

Let's get to it, and I hope you enjoy.

Diane, welcome to the Free To Be Mindful Podcast. I'm so glad you're with us today. 

Diane: Hi. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here. 

V: My pleasure. So we just heard your intro and I was smiling as I was saying it because we have so many things in common. From being in mental health, to being an educator, to being a coach, all the things. But of course, we all have our areas of expertise. So whatever additional thing that you want to share to add on to what we already heard about you. 

Diane: Sure. So I specialize in positive psychology. That's the route I went. And it makes sense because when I graduated, I'm gonna show my age from [00:04:00] graduate school, it was the late nineties, which was the beginning of positive psychology, and my program was a humanistic centered program, which was just a natural kind of shift into positive psychology.

I really love the science. I really love studying what makes us optimistic, resilient, what gives us an overall wellbeing. And I love that positive psychology really puts mindfulness into the practice that we can use with clients because I want my clients to naturally de-stress as much as possible.

And then later on, about 10 years later, I want to get certified as a positive psychology coach. Just to add on to my training on positive psychology. So kind of been in that side of the field, and it slowly has changed. It started with me with positive parenting when my daughter was young. Then I do a lot of positive education for the school systems. But now that I'm in midlife, my favorite part is positive aging, which I wish I would've known 20 years ago. So it just keeps shifting with what's going on in my [00:05:00] life. 

V: Now I love that. And we have that as an overlap as well. And I'll share with you and listeners, especially those listeners who are watching on YouTube is that my office has a lot of yellow. And my branch free to be mindful, has a lot of yellow because I knew I wanted to work with kids and I'm still a kid therapist and a mom coach. But my thing is just finding joy in the little moments wherever we can.

And I just try to remember that because especially in the day and age that we live in now. It's so easy to find negative things or anchors that bring you down that I think it's important to find your own joy and lift yourself up because it's really easy to stay in those muddy waters. So we have that in common too.

But what do you say? To those people who are like, well, you know, it's in the clouds to live so positive. Or it's just a lot of fluff. How can we first explain what positive psychology is and try to shift their mindset a little bit, and make 'em see the worth of why it's [00:06:00] worth to be positive and find joy?

Diane: I have to say, the first thing I noticed was your smiley, uh, yellow. I don't know if it's a balloon on your, oh, 

V: it's a ball up there. Yes. 

Diane: And I was like, oh, I love this already. So we definitely have a lot in common. But yeah, positive psychology. Just to start off, it's not saying that we're always going to be happy and we're always going to be positive. There is no Pollyanna. Life is, you know, rollercoaster, ride filled with ups and downs. And when things are down and we're going through a tough time where you've hit rock bottom, we want you to feel those emotions.

Negative emotions, and I hate calling them negative because they're natural. They're normal emotions, but more intense always exist. Like we can't live a stress-free life. It's how we manage it.

But happiness is really a choice. We can choose to stay focused in on the negative, which is easy to do because we all have a negative bias, so we tend to lean towards a negative notice, a negative, or get stuck in it. Or we can choose to [00:07:00] focus in more on the good or the positive. Which still means yes, the negative exists, but it allows us to see the good in a bad situation. Or to see the purpose in a painful situation. And that helps us to realize that what we're going through could really suck. I mean, there's no way around it. But it's temporary. And what you're feeling today is not what you're going to be feeling next week or next month.

And also knowing that we build resiliency with everything we go through. So yes, you might heal grief, forgive work through something. And then be triggered a year, two years later, or even five years later. But because you became more resilient, you'll get through it quicker. You're more self-aware. You'll know what tools to use and then you can get through it.

But we're not saying you're not going to have any pain or any negative emotions. And positive psychology really is the science or the study behind happiness, resiliency, optimism, using your strengths and wellbeing. It was coined in [00:08:00] 1998 by Dr. Martin Seligman, who at the time was the president of American Psychological Association. Today runs the graduate school of UPenn. He's been really talking about the science for years.

And my favorite part about it is that it gives us positive psychology interventions and happiness habits that to me, I've used with my clients as well as myself, they're very realistic, easy to use, they won't change your schedule, and they don't cost anything.

And as a parent, right, we're always like, I have no time left. You know, I'm trying to do work-life balance. My kids have taken all my money, but I know I need to make changes. And these are really bite-sized changes that make huge differences. And that's what I love about it.

I just did a workshop for social workers. And the one thing they always say is, this is just so. Like easy to do. It's just such realistic things. It's just that one, we're busy. [00:09:00] Two, a lot of us, especially as women and moms, we tend to put ourselves on the bottom of the priority list that we don't even think about these things. So it's just a really good reminder and if we incorporate them into our lives, we can really notice a difference.

So it's a really good science and it's easy to follow, easy to use, and that's what I really love about it. 

V: I appreciate all of that and I too think that it's easy to use and easy to remember. I think sometimes that it proves to be a challenge for folks who may not naturally be in that mindset, which I wanna get to in a moment.

But when you were saying, you know, mom say, oh, my kids took all of my, I thought you were gonna say my kids took all my joy, but you said my kids took all my money. So I guess money, I hope not all your joy, but I hope not either. Depends on the day.

But I love that you explained it in that way because sometimes people do think like, oh, well that's pie in the sky, right? That's just too much fluff. There's no way that we can't be happy all the time. And you're absolutely right there, there is no way because it's [00:10:00] really natural. As you know, we go to one end of swing of the pendulum, we go to the other end. And working with kids, I love to say there is no bad or good feelings. We just have all feelings and sometimes even happiness can be too intense and sometimes sadness can be too intense.

And sticking with that sadness, what do we say when we say choose joy? And I say we, 'cause I say that as well. But then somebody saying, well I have, you know, major depressive disorder and it's very intense and very severe. How can I choose joy? Just trying to think, you know, with the skeptic in mind, what do we say to them? 

Diane: So first, if you are dealing with any mental illness, whether it's generalized anxiety disorder, depressive disorder, even dystymia or just mild, but you're dealing with it daily or anything else that we could talk about, we still want you to get your treatment. You know, go to your counseling, do whatever you do, whether it's CBT, DBT, EMDR, whatever, take your medications. Absolutely. [00:11:00] These are add-ons. So, and when you think of DBT, you know, if I'm just trying to explain it in lay terms, it's CBT with mindfulness on top of it.

I look at it this way, if you just had any kind of physical illness, right? You had a heart attack, you wanna go for your traditional treatments, but a lot of hospitals now add alternatives with it to help you heal, right? So not only will you do traditional and get whatever you need done, medications, any, procedures, then they'll offer you reiki. They'll offer you massage, coaching, nutrition. So think of this as an add-on. And think of it as using it with whatever else you're already doing.

Or add it in. If you're already done, let's say you still still on medication, but you have finished counseling or you just go as maintenance once every few weeks or a month. Add these things in and be realistic about them. Really be realistic about one, when we're adding things into a schedule for them to become an autopilot lifestyle habit. And I think where we [00:12:00] lose people, and not just with happiness, but even like personal training or diet is. Used to read a magazine, so you hear it on podcasts, oh, one month, and you know everything's okay.

Scientifically, to really change a habit, or break a habit, or form a new habit, takes about three months. Yeah. So when you're doing something, you wanna do it for more than a month.

And also it's consistency. When we have the consistency and we keep doing it, then we notice the difference. And that's the point.

Like we, that's what we were saying. We know we're gonna have negatives. Right? So looking at the science, negative emotions versus positive emotions, right? Stress, anxiety, worry, fear versus love, joy, gratitude, kindness, hope. You need three positive emotions to balance out one negative. 

V: Mm-hmm. 

Diane: So when people think, oh, this doesn't work. It's No, we need a daily diet of positive emotions. We need to have it consistently, and we have to make it a consistent. Part of our routine, but if you [00:13:00] do, it actually works.

And I'll just share this really briefly. 12, 13 years ago, I got really sick. I couldn't swallow it. Literally lost 28 pounds in two months, could not swallow my own saliva, water, nothing. And I was dealing with an illness that caused very, very much a deep depression for me. I couldn't eat, I couldn't swallow. Wow, all these things took about eight, nine months for me to even get a diagnosis. In the middle of it, they thought I had ALS. And I literally put myself in counseling. And I still remember a close friend came over and she said, I'm gonna give you some of your own advice. And I was like, Hmm. 'cause no one ever wants their own advice. She goes, you're gonna have to start doing the gratitude you talk about and make everybody else do. And I was like, all right, get out.

But I started doing it consistently, and I have to tell you, the first few weeks, every time I was saying what I was grateful for, I'd actually be like, this is bullshit. I'm not grateful for this. I can't swallow, I can't eat. I'm starving. No one knows what's wrong with me. And I break down.

Somewhere, I don't remember exactly, but [00:14:00] somewhere around two, two and a half months, all of a sudden I was like, wow, okay. This sucks. But I was going to work and at the time I was working at a rehab where my clientele was traumatic brain injury and spinal injury. And I started being able to see the good and the bad. Like, okay, I can't eat right now, but I'm able to drive here. I'm able to still work. And that right there, it was literally like an aha moment. I was like, my God. This stuff works. Mm-hmm. Literally, and I was in a very depressed state. I was dealing with a major physical illness. I was dealing with depression due to the illness and it still worked.

And I used it with my clientele with traumatic brain injury and spinal injury. And a lot of them are now paralyzed due to an injury or military from the chest or waist down. And in the beginning when I started doing some of the positive psychology interventions like kindness and happiness, and noticing what you did well, I would get a lot of resistance. Absolutely. But after like them doing it for like two to three months or [00:15:00] longer, they'd be like, wow, this stuff works. Like, it was almost shocking to them too, because you're like, oh, gratitude. I mean, being kinder does something. It actually does.

V: It does. Yes. Yes. And that's why, even when I talk about mindful living and my framework, and sometimes it feels so silly 'cause I'm like, this is so basic, you know? Like, why doesn't everybody know this? It really is so simple. But the thing is that so many of us dismiss the simple because we're looking for that, that, well, it has to be harder, you know, or there, it has to be a magic pill or that quick fix. But really doing the simple things and we'll get into the strategies into a little bit that listeners and viewers can walk away with. It really does make a very big difference. But you have to try it with fidelity, like you said, you have to be consistent with it, and it doesn't just happen overnight. And I appreciate your vulnerability in sharing yours story. It reminds me just yesterday my dad was recalling he had a major heart surgery two years [00:16:00] ago. And to put it very, basically, he has a mechanical heart that he has to have batteries on at all times in order to keep his heart pumping. It's called an LVAD, A mechanical machine that helps his heart pump.

But all to say even prior, before doing that or prior, before getting on the heart transplant list, there's a social worker there, really looking at, does this person, is this person open to the surgery? Do they have the right support systems in place? Are their mindset in the right place? Because even if you're going in for something big, and that's physical. If you are not there mentally, and emotionally, and fully accepting, not just the help that you're going to need because of the recovery, but fully accepting of this big, life changing, altering thing, then sometimes it just doesn't work.

And we can believe in all different things, whether it be positive psychology, or mindfulness, or energy, or a higher power, whatever it is. But there's something to be said to be open and thankful for the little things and [00:17:00] really be optimistic and hopeful that things will work out even when the going gets tough.

Diane: Oh, you need that placebo effect, if we even wanna put it that way. Right. . And I hope your father's doing okay two years later.

V: He's doing good. He's very well, yes. Good. 

Diane: And, but it's true. You know, I forgot what the actual, I think it's Dr. Bernie Siegel. Don't quote me. It could be wrong, but he used to do a lot of writing and speaking about when he had clients come in, if they believed they were going to heal. They would heal quicker, smoother. And even the ones who had, you know, only two to three years to live would end up living five or six years. Then you had someone who come in and. You know, they had stage zero and they were going to be fine, but they didn't believe they would, and they would have such a longer road.

And I know the clients that I worked with, the ones who really healed the quickest and the smoothest, both physically, mentally, and emotionally had what you just said. They had an unconditional support system. Which doesn't have to be huge, could just be a few people. But set [00:18:00] unconditional support where they're there for you without judgment, abandonment, rejection. That you can be truly your authentic self and be vulnerable, and do the work you need. And that's so important and that is a top factor of happiness. 'cause the top factor is socialization, which includes support system, fun community. So really looking whether you're healing physically, emotionally, or both really having that is so important. 

V: A thousand percent. And we've talked about positive psychology overall. But you said something before that My alerts and probably my gray hair said, ding, ding, ding. Positive aging. Because a lot of the women that listen to the podcast are between the ages of 35 and 44. Then the second demographic is like 44 to 54 or so.

And that is something that when we, and I've started already with perimenopause and the changes in your body. Sometimes the changes to the way that you think and the snappiness with people. And sometimes it is really hard to [00:19:00] age gracefully. So really hard to age positively. So tell us a little bit more about that concept. 

Diane: So my favorite positive aging, and I'm in the second demographic. But we do go through a lot of changes and just something to put out there between midlife, You know, 40 to 65, we do what's called the U Dip. Where somewhere in your forties things start just going kind of downhill a little bit. And that's kind of a normal reaction. And it could be perimenopause or menopause. And I know we're talking to women, but men go through andropause. Doesn't have as much popularity, but they have hormone changes as well. And during this U-turn, not only do we have all the hormone challenges, there's a lot of stuff going on.

For a lot of us in our forties, we're dealing with the beginnings of emptiness. Maybe our kids are starting to hit like the end of high school or college where they're moving out, or they don't really need us, or they went away to school. Then we also have our parents who are aging. So we have that sandwich generation. As [00:20:00] well as for a lot of us when we hit our forties, we kind of go through an identity crisis. Kind of like adolescence, where you start going, okay, I'm in this time where it should be me time. My kids are older, I have more resources, I'm more set. But yet, I don't know what I wanna do. And sometimes it's, we planned our life in our late teens, early twenties, and now here we are. And we're like, well, that didn't turn out the way I wanted, or It did turn out, but it's not making me as happy. Right? Where we get to that empt nest or whatever it is, and we go, what's next? That can cause a lot of confusion for a lot of us. And I don't like using the word midlife crisis. 'cause we could be at a crisis at any time. In 

V: life. Any time. Yes. 

Diane: Right. It's just a change we're going through. And we're gonna go through that again when we retire, and we'll go through that later adulthood, like we're always going through changes in crisis, but it's a normal part of aging to be like, okay, what's next?

And then on top of that, the physical changes. Not just the gray hair, but the [00:21:00] wrinkles and then the body changes with menopause. And it, it does cause a lot of interruption. But it's learning to embrace change. Knowing that change is the only constant.

Also knowing this with aging, which was a real big wake up call for me when I started teaching it. 'Cause it's newer science. But genetics only plays 25% of a role in how you age. That's it. Just 25%. And I know when I graduated we didn't know that.

So it gives you back some control because the rest of it is environmental and lifestyle. And yes, there's certain things we can't control. There's going to be a lot more technology that affects us differently. Some of the foods have pesticides and things we can't, the spray as they use certain things. But we have a lot of control over our life.

And one thing you just said that we talked about is your belief system. We need to have a belief system of what aging looks like. Like I know for me growing up, for some reason, and I grew up in New York, and you can hear the [00:22:00] accent. Everybody in their forties, like all the women around me, not just my mom or grandmother, aunts, but like the neighbors friends- somewhere in their forties all cut their hair off. I still remember this. Yeah. And I was like. Why, like, and they were just like, that's just what you do. Like you don't trust this way, you don't do this to your hair. And and I remember being like, but, but no, like why? And we don't do that anymore because we've changed it. But a lot of us have these belief systems of what aging is going to look like or feel like. And if it's a negative belief system on it, that's how you're going to age. If you believe this is a new chapter in your life that's exciting and you come to it from a place of curiosity and openness and excitement, then it's gonna be a really good chapter. So it's really how you choose to view aging.

And there's things we can do. We think of food and exercise as medicine, which is really important for us to do. And we think of our brain like a muscle, the more we use it. You know, [00:23:00] otherwise we lose it if we don't use it. And we start doing more cog work to be preventative in Alzheimer's, dementia and memory issues. Yeah, we take care of ourselves. I mean, people are living into their easily late eighties, early nineties, and they're saying the newer generation has potential of like one 20 and more.

So, I mean, it's really how you take care of yourself and your belief system. So. What you're eating, what you're digesting, not just food and drink, but what you're watching on tv, who you spend your time with. All of that plays a role.

So it's really important to kind of self-reflect during this time and see what do I believe about aging? What is my belief on change? 'cause aging is just change. Who do I spend my time with? What am I digesting? What am I, you know, eating? All of that because please, you just role in what you know your aging process looks like.

V: It really does, and I appreciate you normalizing that. Yes, change is going to come. We go through change every day, just as there are seasons. And [00:24:00] our life sometimes looks very different, whether it is a high school senior going to college or whether it is switching jobs or careers. And definitely in the, I wanna say the second part of life, because there's so much that comes in that second chapter that it's important to look at it through this lens that we're not living in the era of the Golden girls anymore.

I mean, when you look at their ages. They're like my age and I don't feel like I have to have my gray hair short and a, like a moo moo dress at the age of, oh God, no, 43 right now.

So accepting, you know that we have options and that we have so much more control than we really do think. Some of us say, life happens to us. But really we have a lot of input on the way maybe that we age. On the way that we show up in life, most definitely. And what we bring towards us, what we accept in our lives, and what perhaps that we shift out of if it's no longer serving us.

Diane: Yeah, it's really true. It's [00:25:00] scary when you said, you know, the Golden girls were like our age when they look like that. I think my aha moment, is I remember going in to teach, I've been, I've been teaching college for 25 years and it was a few years ago, and one of the students who had to be like early twenties, she's like, I love your shirt. She's like, I have the same one. And I'm like, Macy? She's like, yeah. And I'm like. Oh, we shop at the same store. Like it was just like, you would've never done that 30 years ago. Like women went to this store, young girls went to this store. Mm-hmm. Now it's like we're all shopping at the same places or virtually. Like even my daughter, like she's 23. We share clothes sometimes because we have similar tastes. Like it wasn't like I've aged out and I shouldn't wear this or shouldn't do that. You might feel more comfortable in certain things or want certain things 'cause your taste has changed. There's really no rules that we need to follow the way there used to be. And that's a good thing. You get to define what aging looks like And that I think is the sense of control, even if life happens to you, which it does, [00:26:00] right? As we know, even nature versus nurture. 10% of life is circumstances. We can't control it. But we can control ourselves and how we react and respond, and that part we can do. Even with aging. 

V: Absolutely. And having that awareness of, the preconceived notions that may come up. You know, so you mentioned the hair, um, or where you shop. It reminded me the other day, I think I walked into a store like Chico's or something like that, and as I was opening the door, I was like, oh, my mom comes here. But I bought something and it looked good. You know? So sometimes these things are just in our minds like this, these are for this set of people, right? This age. You can't do this anymore. And it's really widening that, that horizon, that mindset, because we can do so much more and definitely will live longer if we put these strategies into place that we're going to talk about now so that we can make an impact, a positive impact on each of our lives personally, but also on our community, whether it be family or beyond.

[00:27:00] So going into some kind of easy takeaways that listeners and viewers can walk away with. What are some easy things that people can do to implement positive psychology? 

Diane: Well, it's a few things,

so the first one, we were talking about positive emotions. So I just wanted to give a little background on that. When we get that daily dose of positive emotions, it does a few things. So first, for positive aging, when we have that, we live up to seven years longer, healthier, and happier. So you wanna get as many positive emotions.

Here's the thing, again, as we said, you need three positive emotions to balance one negative. But the way to do that is when we give or receive positive emotions, we get a boost of happiness. So here are some kind of doubles gratitude, right? Gratitude's a positive emotion. So every time you feel grateful or thankful, you get that boost of happiness. The other thing about gratitude is it's also a happiness habit, and what it does is every time you feel grateful. [00:28:00] It also cultivates mindfulness, so you get the boost of happiness, but you also get to naturally de-stress.

The other thing about gratitude and how I have my clients use it is I have them do it at night to do a gratitude. And I don't call it a journal. 'cause not everybody's gonna journal and that's okay. Just say a gratitude check. We're right before bed because whatever, we're thinking about 20 to 30 minutes before we go to bed. Affects if we sleep, how we sleep, what mood we wake up in, and how we dream. And we wanna go to sleep with positive emotions or mindfulness 'cause it helps us sleep. So before bed, you can write it, say it out loud, say it in your head, discuss it with your husband, however you wanna do it. Just ask yourself, what are two to three things I'm grateful for that happened today. Start looking through your day for the little gifts, blessings, and miracles. And not only will you get the happiness and the mindfulness, when you do that every day consistently, it actually starts to rewire your brain to notice the good. And [00:29:00] that's a little bit of a mindset shift where you can really just start noticing the good in your day, which starts making you look for it, instead of always looking for the negative.

I've always had a few clients who would say, you know, somewhere between like two to three months or so, they'd be like, all of a sudden, like, I'm stuck in traffic. But I was able to see the good because I had a really good podcast on. Or I was listening to a really good song. But three months ago, that would've set me off in road rage because you were just ready to lose it, 'cause everything, you know, traffic rushing, trying to get the kids off, everything was going on. But now you're starting to see some good in, maybe just let you finish the podcast that you wouldn't have done. Or maybe 'cause you were stuck in traffic, you got to the building and the rain stopped. You know, just the little things. You just start noticing things differently. And it's the one practice I do every day and I find myself on autopilot doing it like something bad happens and I'll be like, oh.

But I'm grateful this didn't happen, or I'm grateful that because of this, this happened. And I never was able to do [00:30:00] that. Even though we're in the field, it doesn't mean we always, you know, take our own advice. And it took me a while to do, and it's one of the best habits I've done, and it should really be part of routine.

And again, the other bonuses, if you don't have much of a religious belief, you're not following a tradition or religion going to church or temple. What I love about gratitude is it's spiritual, so you could just believe in a higher power or a higher self of the universe and still be able to have that. 'Cause prayer is mindfulness as well. But again, I have some clients who just don't have that belief. But gratitude is just a form of feeling grateful. And again, takes three to four minutes. Doesn't change your schedule. Free. But makes a real huge difference.

So gratitude, along with the other positive emotions. Which again, hope, inspiration, pride, accomplishment, awe, wonderment, whichever ones you want will help us to live longer, healthier, happier, and balance out the negative [00:31:00] emotions. 

V: Beautiful. And I always like to offer the kid version, so to speak, of strategies because that way moms can implement it in their own lives and then implement it with kids.

So as a kid therapist, I say the same thing to kids, whether it be five years old or 15, even 25 for the big kids. And I love, again, doing it at nighttime because you go through everything. And I say, not the Thanksgiving stuff. We're all grateful for, you know, our family and our home and all of that. The food. We want to look for those tiny things like you mentioned. And like you said, we train our brain and the more good that we seek, the more good that we will see. And when you do it with kids, you can do it at the dinner table or you can do it when you put them to bed. And obviously gratitude is really big word if you have a five or seven or 8-year-old, but you can say, well, what made you happy today? What things are you happy for? Thankful for, grateful for. They all mean the same thing in a kid's mind and they can do the exact same thing. And if we train our kids to do [00:32:00] that at a younger age, imagine how we're training their brains to develop and then make that positive impact as they get older.

Diane: I'm gonna add to that 'cause I love that for kids. The other thing you could do where your kids, again at the dinner table is one of the easiest ways, but wherever you choose is not only what are you grateful for or happy for. But doing acts of kindness, having everybody say one thing nice about either somebody at the table. Giving a compliment, even Mom, I love the mac and cheese. This is my favorite. It could be that simple. Or a compliment that their teacher or something that they learned the random acts of kindness. Because kindness again is a positive emotion. It's a win-win. 'cause whoever you do the positive, the act of kindness for gets the same boost of happiness, but it also raises self-esteem.

I also like what you say. If we all just did one or two random acts of kindness a day, we could kind of shift the whole world. And the easiest positive psychology intervention is just smiling at 10 people [00:33:00] a day. Just a smile, which again, also produces endorphins, the happy chemical that makes us feel good and reduce pain. So there's so many like happy side effects from doing things like gratitude or kindness.

And then you could even add to it again with another positive psychology of just saying. What did you do well today? So what you grateful for? We might not have control over. Like, oh, my teacher gave us goldfish and my favorite flavor. The pizza one's great, but you didn't have control over as an adult. I didn't hit traffic. But what you did well are the things you put your effort into- the hard work, the practice, and that's a different feeling, and that gives you two positive emotions of pride and accomplishment. So we can mix them. So you could do gratitude and you can have them go. You know, as an adult or for kids, whatever language works, depending on the age, what are two to three things you did well today? That you put the hard work in and just being able to feel those pride and accomplishment and making your bed does it. I mean, that's an easy [00:34:00] exercise. If everybody makes their bed, including kids. It gives them that pride and accomplishment. So all of that together makes a huge difference and they're all free, easy, and don't change your schedule.

V: Yes, a gazillion percent. I'm still working on the making your bed part. Don't get to that every morning, but it's still on my list. But I love what you said because it really does boost self-esteem, which then helps confidence and that changes the way that kids, and also the way that adults show up in life, which makes such a big difference.

And again, for those skeptics that you know may mention. What about when something not great does happen? You mentioned it before. The kid version that I say is, well then insert an at least statement. Well at least dot, dot, dot, and fill in the blank there so that we can, again, just shift the mindset of how we're viewing when maybe something that was not great happened so that you can still see the positive even in those moments 

Diane: or add in the growth mindset.

Your kids came home and they said, I only got a c. [00:35:00] And you're like, yeah, but you're gonna do another assignment. You just haven't gotten a B yet. 

V: Yet 

Diane: putting in the word yet. It gives hope. It shows potential. It allows you to think different instead of, I'm never gonna get a a, B or, look, everything I do doesn't work. No, I just haven't gotten it yet. And the same for adults. Oh, my business didn't get to the point I wanted to be at yet. I only lost five pounds. I haven't lost a 10 pounds yet. Just change how you talk to yourself. Use different words for your kids, for yourself, does make a huge difference.

V: And I did want to bring light to that, as you said, even as clinicians, as educators, as people who breathe and live, this, not every day is positive and not every moment goes according to plan. Never. But it's really never, ever. But it's really the way that we choose to look at it and, and the bounce back effect after something does take place.

So all of these things, I always say, you know, sometimes we don't have the extra 30 minutes of in our day. For me, I [00:36:00] never have the extra 30 minutes in the day to just sit and meditate. But what I do like to do is live mindfully so that it shows up in the smallest of actions. And like you said, it's not anything extra that we're adding to the plate.

Diane: Absolutely.

V: Diane, you're doing such amazing work in this world. If you could be remembered for one thing only, what would that one thing be? 

Diane: Boy, I know that's like a question you always hear. I think I do wanna just be known for gratitude. Like that is like the superpower. I always want to teach people that if they leave any of my workshops or taking class with me or whatever it is, that they, they realized that gratitude would make the biggest difference in their life and that it would make a change. And that I was one of those people who helped.

Like I just think I wanna be known as somebody who helped other people, like who made an impact, even small by adding gratitude or whatever it is. But I think that's why all of us get in this field, whether you're coaching, [00:37:00] counseling, social work, teaching, you do it 'cause you wanna make an impact. And that's my impact that people can realize they could be happier than where they are today.

V: I love it. And I know that you're definitely doing the work by just even talking about the topics that you talked about today, which is in all of the work that you do.

So if people wanted to find out more about you, where can they find you? 

Diane: They could just go to my website, which is just my name, diane lang.org. And on there there is a popup for a newsletter. I just have a weekly newsletter, my book stuff. Everything's just right on there.

V: So thank you so much for taking your time out and sharing your expertise, your time, your talents, and I do hope that listeners really grab one thing that they can implement beginning as soon as this podcast ends, and not only implement it for themselves, but also for their families to make that positive chain reaction in our world.

Diane: Thank you so much for having me. 

V: My pleasure.

I am still all smiles after this [00:38:00] conversation with Diane. Thank you once again for your time, expertise, your talent, and like we said in the intro, keeping it real.

While Diane works with the older population, I always bring it back to you, to the mom who's listening in. And we all go through so many challenges. Challenges with our kids, challenges, perhaps with school systems, with being a working professional mom. And then all of those pour into ourselves and we typically, as always, leave ourselves for last.

But Amigas, it's so important for you to carve out time, just like you carved out this time to listen to this podcast while you're doing whatever else it is that you're doing to carve out time to pour into you.

And that is the time that I provide with one-on-one mom coaching. I provide you with the space to dump the things that you need to dump, to [00:39:00] strategize, to implement, and to change your life for the better. When you pour into you, then it'll have a domino effect into all of those that you love and to the rest of your life.

So if you're interested in one-to-one Mom coaching, I do invite you to look at the show notes and visit the link to set up your one hour free strategy call with no strings attached. It's simply a place to explore what's happening in your life right now. And if you'd like to take it a step further, I am here at your service.

Bringing it back to how we ended the interview with Diane. I asked for you to think of three things, whether it's 9:00 AM right now or 9:00 PM. Think of three things that you are grateful for today. Maybe you didn't get stuck in traffic. Maybe you got an additional two minutes for yourself. Or my favorite example, maybe you drank your coffee while it was still hot. Let's train our brains to look [00:40:00] for good. As I shared, the more good that we seek, the more good that we see.

Please do share this interview with another mom, friend or an Amiga mom who may benefit from hearing this message. And as always, in a world where you're free to be anything, you're always free to be mindful. Thanks for tuning in and catch you next time. 

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