At the Phyllis J. Washington Center for the Advancement of Positive Education at the University of Montana we have two big and exciting activities happening this summer.
The first one is called “A Really Good Day for Educators.” We’re offering this FREE, live and in-person day of training for educators on August 3 in Missoula in collaboration with a fabulous organization called Legacy+. Legacy+ is a Toronto-based organization that helps bring purpose to life. They’re also fun and amazing collaborative partners. As one example, they immediately claimed the site https://areallygoodday.com/ for our event landing page. Go there now (if you’re interested). You can learn more about Legacy+ here: https://legacyplus.org/about-us/
The second activity is our usual Evidence-Based Happiness for Educators course. We still have openings and the price is an absolute bargain for 3 UM grad credits or 45 OPI license renewal units.
Last thing. I wrote an Op-Ed piece on Mental Health Awareness Month and sent it to the New York Times. I do that sort of thing once in a while when I want to have sort of a lonely-rejection experience. However, the NYT may be ignoring me, but I’m not ignoring myself, because, I have now submitted the Op-Ed to @johnsommersflanagan.com. . .and the johnsommersflanagan website monitor is much kinder and has let me put a link to a pdf of the lightly edited Op-Ed piece here!
Yesterday, Tammy Tolleson Knee (the new director of the Phyllis J. Washington Center for the Advancement of Positive Education) and I arrived in Kalispell, Montana for a 2+ day retreat with staff from the Nate Chute Foundation (NCF). Their mission: The Nate Chute Foundationsupports, educates and empowers our community to promote mental wellness and reduce suicide. You can learn more about NCF’s fabulous work and staff right here: https://www.natechutefoundation.org/
Our retreat is top secret, but I’ll share it here anyway because I don’t like secrets.
Having grown weary with traditional, pathology-oriented approaches to “suicide prevention” we’re working together to create a new curriculum tentatively titled “Strengths-Based Suicide Education for Concerned Adults.” Our plan is to use this new curriculum to replace all the unhelpful and sometimes traumatizing approaches to suicide prevention.
Yes, we have big goals.
Today we’re breaking away from our retreat for a short presentation/consult with Immanuel Living of Kalispell.
In preparation for this short conversation, I pulled out an old slide about a thing called Stress Inoculation Training (thanks Don Meichenbaum!).
The point of SIT is to prepare for stressors or provocations in life that adversely affect us. For example, let’s say that you find ___________ stressful. (You can put anything in the blank. It could be exercise, talking with your boss, going to church, not going to church, speaking in public meetings, etc.). Then you create your own personalized stress inoculation plan.
Meichenbaum’s therapy approach is designed to prep or inoculate us from our usual and predictable stressors. He described three steps: (1) preparation for provocation, (2) coping with the provocative situation, and (3) reflection and self-reinforcement. Here’s a visual, with our stressors and responses organized into 7 dimensions:
If we all had rational brains and lived in a rational world, SIT would work perfectly for everyone. But like everything, it doesn’t always work. During today’s talk, I’m revealing the secrets of why our best laid plans often fail. Newsflash: it has to do with our quirky brains, which, although amazing, also automatically and regularly take us down into negative thinking rabbit holes.
TBH, IMHO, dipping into a negative thinking rabbit hole every once in a while can be fun, but if your intention was to avoid negative thinking rabbit holes, they’re considerably less fun.
Unfortunately, due to time limits and the need for mystery in marketing, this blog is ending without me sharing the five secrets of why our pesky brains often derail us from our positive intentions. Sorry about that. They’re in the pdf of the ppts linked below, and although you can find them there, it’s much more fun for us to talk about these in person . . . so I hope to see you at a presentation in the future.
Hello from Montana where we continue to offer and collect data on our evidence-based “Happiness for Educators” course.
Although we’re in the process of updating the following abstract (see below) with fancier stats, for now, it’s a solid summary of our outcomes to date. You’ll notice our depression outcomes (g = 0.59) are not far from worldwide estimates of counseling and psychotherapy outcomes for depression (see Harrer et al., 2025; estimated effect size for depression treatment is g = 0.73)
I’m writing today with expansion and collaboration on my mind.
If any of you academics, educators, or practitioners out there are interested in offering the Happiness for Educators course in your state, or if you happen to be interested in research collaboration, please email me: john.sf@mso.umt.edu. We’ve got a good thing going (who’s against having happier and healthier educators?) and would love to begin scaling up (within our capacity).
Abstract
Purpose: Using an approach grounded in happiness research, this study contributes to the literature on strategies for supporting educator well-being. Educators deserve good health; when educators have better health, students benefit. We developed and evaluated the effectiveness of a three-credit, graduate-level, online and asynchronous evidence-based “Happiness for Educators” course on educator well-being, mental health, and physical health.
Research Methods/Approach: Using a pre-experimental design with five repeated cohorts, we evaluated pre-post course changes on six different well-being, mental health, and physical health questionnaires with 17 end-point outcomes. Across five cohorts, 266 of 293 (90.8%) educators completed the course. We evaluated outcomes using paired t-tests.
Findings: After using a Bonferroni adjustment for multiple comparisons, educators completing the course reported statistically significant improvements (p < .002) on all 17 outcomes. These outcomes included measures of positive and negative affect, hope, depression, mindfulness, and physical health. Large to medium effect sizes (using Hedge’s g) were obtained on the following outcomes:
Positive affect, (g = .802)
Total health, (g = .719)
Negative affect, (g = .705)
Depression (g = 590)
Total hope (g = .568)
Sleep (g = .556)
Mindfulness, (g = .542).
Overall, course participation was linked to a 60.8% reduction in depression rates.
Implications: Implications that can be drawn from a pre-experimental exploratory study are limited. However, these outcomes suggest that an asynchronous, online graduate-level course on positive psychology (aka happiness) has potential for improving educators’ well-being, mental health, and physical health. Future research on this approach is recommended.
My apologies for the late notice, but I’m doing a free, online, one-hour talk tomorrow, 3/4/2026 at 2-3pm Mountain time. Sponsored by the Center for Children, Families, and Workforce Development and MAPP-Net, the talk is titled, “Ten things Everyone Should Know about Suicide, Mental Health, and Happiness.” Here’s the link:
Warning: this is not my most uplifting talk. the first half focuses mostly on the “Wicked Problem” of suicide. The good news is that I do end on Happiness!
Whether you attend or not (it’s free!), thanks for being someone who’s working to make the world a better, kinder, and more eudaimonically happy place.
Apparently, it’s winter in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Who knew? Clearly not me. Being from balmy Montana where we’ve barely experienced any winter in 2025-2026, I arrived here in Grand Forks to the -25 F degree windchill without a stocking cap or gloves. What was I thinking, you ask? Well, maybe I was just in a here-and-now mindfulness state where the future had not yet arrived. Yep. That’s it. I didn’t forget to plan. I was just in the moment.
In this moment, I’m in my hotel room prepping for three things:
My keynote presentation at Red River H.S.
My hoped-for good night’s sleep, and
How to get to the airport and make it to Boston before I get frostbite.
While prepping for these first two things I had an incredible epiphany and discovered or recovered the simple solution to insomnia. Some of this is old, so bear with me:
Sleep is a challenge for much of the U.S. population. If you struggle with sleep, join the club. It’s a big club. We welcome you, principally because misery loves miserable company.
There are three main forms of insomnia: (a) initial insomnia (aka difficulty falling asleep); (b) terminal insomnia (aka early morning awakening); and (c) intermittent insomnia (aka choppy sleep).
Several other factors also interfere with sleep including children, pets, light, your neighbors starting up their chainsaw, alcohol, caffeine, temperature, nightmares, and more.
This means that many Americans are awake in the night at times when they would rather be asleep. I know you’ve been there, done that, and will likely do it again.
But when you’re there in that “I wish I was sleeping” state, did you ever have the epiphany that you should stop trying to get back to sleep? Sure, you have. Maybe you’ve even gotten up. But that’s not what I’m about to suggest.
Because sleep is elusive and difficult to directly achieve, if you awaken in the night—and you have a pattern of insomnia—you could (and maybe should)—immediately let go of sleep as your primary goal. This is because if you have a goal and you’re not achieving it, you’re going to feel frustration and other unpleasant emotions (anger, sadness, anxiety, etc.) that are directly contrary to sleep.
Do you recall the main characteristic of a smart goal? A smart goal is within your control. If your goal is not within your control, then it’s a dumb goal. Make sense?
So, if you’re awake and struggling to return to sleep, try shifting your goal away from sleep and toward something that is, literally, the next best thing. You should shift to a goal of relaxation, of soothing, of comfort, of emotional peace, and of getting yourself into a generally pleasant state of mind and body. You can accomplish this via several strategies. You can meditate. You can count your breaths. You can use the Seligman technique of three good things. You can do progressive muscle relaxation. You can use the cognitive shuffle. Essentially, you can use anything you want that helps you get to an emotionally calm and pleasant state (although I recommend avoiding drugs and alcohol to get there).
Or, if you need more info on this stuff, plus sleep hygiene, you can watch the video linked below.
The point is that, over time and with practice, you will begin to be able to achieve your very pleasant, almost sleep state. And physically, physiologically, and emotionally, the benefits of almost sleep are very close to the benefits of sleep. But—on the other hand—if you directly keep pursuing sleep as your primary goal, you will feel frustrated and less restored that you would with almost sleep.
Experiencing frustration through the night offers you zero benefits.
I’ve thrown out several ideas here and this may not feel like the ultimate fix for your sleep issues, but then again, expecting to find an ultimate fix for your sleep problems will likely only magnify the problem. For most of us, there is no ultimate sleep fix. There is just time alone in bed with our own brain and our own thoughts, and so teaching ourselves to be as comfortable as possible with our brains and our thoughts is a fantastic goal.
If you want more on this, I’ve stolen the Module 3, Part 2 Sleep video from our Happiness for Educators course and the link is here (Note: for some reason, maybe because I pretended I was asleep at the beginning of this video, I seem—at least to me—to have a very slow pace in this video; of course, this may be a good thing; it could make you very, very, sleepy): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOXW_5Df3UE
As for me, I’m looking forward to up to 850 Grand Fork educators tomorrow, so I’m stopping here, not in search of a good night’s sleep, but in search of experiencing a pleasant mental and emotional state, which just might translate to a more restorative nighttime experience. . . and maybe even more sleep.
One of my 2026 goals is to post more often on my blog because my blog gets sad when I ignore it. So far, I’m not exactly knocking this 2026 goal out of the park. . .but the time is coming.
Today, I have several exciting things to share.
I’m heading to Grand Forks, North Dakota on Sunday, to present to a group of about 850 educators there. Here’s the link to that ppt presentation:
Then, I take a (hopefully) quick flight to Boston, where I’ll present (along with the wonderful Tammy Tolleson Knee) to about 500 educators in the Easton School District. Here’s a link to the Easton presentation on Tuesday:
Yesterday a Missoula school counselor emailed me and said she (along with a classroom that included one of my granddaughters) were watching a video of me teaching the three-step emotional change trick to some finger puppets. I had totally forgotten about that slightly bizarre 4-minute home-made video. Here’s a link for those of you interested in the bizarre, or who need a 4-minute emotional education video for a classroom of 6th graders. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NexXUNy_BaM
As a part of a presentation in Hawai’i that I didn’t attend (what’s wrong with me, I’m going to ND in January, but not HI??), I created a 9-minute video on the outcomes we’ve got for the first 451 educators who have completed our Happiness for Educators course. Dylan fixed up the video, so it’s a little cooler than it would have been. Here’s a link to that one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3cWziR5MDM
I know there are tons of terrible things happening on the planet and in the U.S. Wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, I hope your mid-January is going as well as the forces in the world will allow, and I hope for all things to get better soon. My wife and I have recently been reading about how experiencing positive emotions and joy—in the face of oppression—can be an act of protest and defiance. Of course, we should keep doing social justice along with our defiant joy, but intermittent joy is important too.
I’m done with New Year’s resolutions. This year, I’m changing from New Year’s resolutions to New Year’s intentions.
My first New Year’s intention is to be on time, which is why I’m writing this blog about nine days into 2026.
New Year’s resolutions, intentions, and goal-setting are distinctions with very little difference. You know what they say, “A rose by any other name still smells the same.” But, several years ago, New Year’s intentions became chic. That means if your goal—like mine—for 2026 is to become more chic, you should set intentions, because goals stink.
Whether we call them resolutions, intentions, or goals, ambition for self-improvement is based on one central idea in mental and behavioral health: We all want to be better, to do better, and to become better versions of ourselves.
But self-improvement has never been and never will be easy. What gets in the way? Almost anything. We get distracted. We lose motivation. We get in our own way. We get annoyed and enraged at a world over which we have no control and then give up on the things we do have control over. If you’ve become frustrated at improving yourself (or our American democracy), join the club.
Before I offer a list of tips for bending resolutions, intentions, or goals to your will—so you can remake yourself, here’s a big caveat: Nothing always works. Just because I list it below, it doesn’t mean it will work for you. Life is an experiment. To effectively change your behavior is a long and winding experimental path. Your first resolution, intention, or goal should be to learn as much as you can as you experiment (and intermittently fail) at your efforts for self-improvement. Now, here’s the list of ideas you can try to make yourself a better YOU in 2026.
Linger, reflect, and contemplate on what you want to change about yourself and your life. Impulsive goals last until you get to your next impulse. You may want to consult with someone about what you want to change and why. When building intentions, clarity helps. Finding your why helps too.
Don’t set DUMB goals. I could have suggested that you set SMART goals, but that’s boring and passé and I’m chic. DUMB goals are goals that involve factors outside your control. If your goal is to experience even more frustration then you’re already experiencing, then be sure to make your goal all about somebody else, like, for example, getting your romantic partner, your parent, or your child to communicate better or be on time or stop criticizing you. If you want a snowball’s chance of success, put the resolution, intention, or goal within your circle of control.
Make yourself a bad-ass plan. You shouldn’t rely on your mythical willpower or your vision board or somebody else’s plan. You know yourself. Make a plan that incorporates knowledge from your previous successes. Use your knowledge of your skills for avoidance and your tendency toward distraction to build yourself a unique plan for change.
Set yourself up for easy actions. Let’s say you want to run a marathon or lose 20 pounds or bench press 220 lbs. Would you expect success tomorrow? Of course not. If you’re chic like me, set short-term and long-term intentions.
Go public. If you tell a few people about your goals, you’re more likely to stick with them. Why? It’s not rocket science. Who wants to humiliate themselves via public failure? Also, it doesn’t hurt to check your realism with your friends and family. If your family tells you you’re foolish, use that info in one of two ways: (a) re-evaluate and re-set your goal or (b) use your family’s lack of faith in you as motivation to prove them wrong.
Physically, mentally, and emotionally celebrate short-term success. One of the best tricks for habit change is to celebrate the small steps you make toward success. If you want to engage in social justice activities, give yourself a high-five or a fist pump or a verbal yessssss when you take a tiny step toward meeting with a like-minded civic group. Your brain will feel the love and help you continue toward your goal.
Manage your self-talk (or not). Inevitably, your brain will try to sabotage you. You’ll hear an inner voice of doubt. Words like “You can’t do it” will rise up to smite you and your efforts. Don’t bother wondering where they came from. Either just notice them, say hello, and then let them float away or push back on them with evidence and effort.
This is a short list of a few ideas. There’s much more out there in the world, should you be interested. One warning: If you’re reading or watching something that promises magically easy self-improvement “hacks,” just get out your clicker and change the channel, because, if you’re chic like me, then you know self-improvement requires a savvy plan and sustained effort.
A guest blog by Tavi Brandenburg, with Hyrum Booth and Beth Loudon
**JSF Note: Below you’ll find a guest blog piece from Tavi Brandenburg. Tavi is a doctoral student in Counseling and Supervision at the University of Montana. The blog piece is a summary of themes she, Hyrum, and Beth (two more doc students), derived from a qualitative study of educator responses to our Happiness for Educators course. The themes are in Bold. As you may know, the HFE course is a 3-credit asynchronous course offered through the University of Montana. I hope you enjoy this “Amazing” summary. I am grateful to Tavi, Hyrum, and Beth for their support of our HFE course.**
For the past several months, Hyrum Booth, Beth Loudon, and I (Tavi Brandenburg) have been working on many levels of the Evidence-based Happiness for Educators Course (COUN 591) offered through CAPE & UM. We had the good fortune to share a bit about the course and our findings at the Association of Counselor Educators and Supervisors in Philadelphia. Here’s a link to the presentation slide deck:
Hyrum and I conducted 38 interviews. We enjoyed immersing ourselves in the interview transcripts to make sense of what the participants shared. We asked questions about the lasting impressions of the course, how the participants applied and continue to apply the evidence-based strategies presented during the course, and we asked about the lasting effects of the course on their personal and professional lives. While not always simple and straightforward, the qualitative results–the stories we collected–indicated positive impressions of the course, continued application of the strength-based strategies, and positive ongoing effects personally and interpersonally. And it was much more than that; the participants shared stories that illustrate deep fundamental shifts in personal wellbeing that have lasted over time. The course caused a ripple effect.
As with any ripple effect, there is a catalyst for change–a pebble, a stone, a boulder–for Montana Educators. This course acted as a catalyst for change, sending participants in the direction of introspection and personal development. Most participants experienced some level of dissonance due to discrepancies between their motivations for signing up for the course, including movement on the pay scale, inexpensive continuing education credits, preconceived notions of the course or content based on what they had heard from others. This dissonance was also related to course structure, expectations, and the responsive feedback they received. The personal nature of the course caught many off guard. The flexibility offered in the course design provided autonomy and allowed participants to select evidence-based practices that were meaningful to them rather than progressing through a set of prescribed exercises that may not resonate. This dissonance also came up for folks when the content felt too close to home. When participants experienced personally challenging life events and the course simultaneously, they tended to have strong reactions to either the material, the activities, the pace, or amount of material in the course. As a result of the dissonance they experienced, participants tended to give themselves permission for self-care, which allowed greater ‘flow’ within their professional and personal lives. Additionally, some participants described wide ranging content from more approachable concepts like developing tiny habits, to emotionally challenging exercises like experimenting with forgiveness. For some, the breadth of the content coupled with the pace of the course felt too much at once.
While engaging with the content, participants experienced vulnerability. Depending on the level of depth participants allowed themselves to go while completing the evidence-based practices, vulnerability challenged participants’ sense of comfort; it is not always easy to look inward. Vulnerability also contributed to meaningful connections with family members, colleagues, and students. Vulnerability led to increased self-awareness and other-awareness, and empathy.
Participants articulated being able to be more mindfully present in their daily tasks ranging from doing the dishes, to grading papers, to the quality of engagement with loved ones and learning communities. Vulnerability and presence gave way for some to take important, life-changing steps in their lives. For some, this meant increased ability to set boundaries around work or areas in their lives that they historically struggled to say ‘no,’ allowing these folks to maintain energy for themselves and their own wellbeing or a deepened state of connection with loved ones. Several participants took radical steps to prioritize themselves by leaving relationships or K-12 education. These folks specifically stated the course did not cause these substantial changes, rather the course illuminated a way of being that was more in line with how they would like to live their lives and they had the presence of mind to execute momentous changes.
Another ripple created by taking the courses includes the development and/or reinforcement of a wellbeing toolkit that they used for themselves and shared with loved ones and learning community members. Many participants took evidence-based exercises from the course and directly and intentionally applied them in their lives, with their families, with their students, and in their learning communities. Some teachers reported marked improvement in the classroom community, noting that students were more engaged in their learning, more empathic with others, more willing to take intellectual risks (be vulnerable). Many participants noted incorporating gratitude into their daily lives at home, and at school. Often professional development is a ‘top down’ experience, leaving teachers struggling to connect with the ‘why’ of new practices. This course, as professional development, had the opposite effect. Teachers applied the practices and developed a wellbeing toolkit that worked for them, leading them to deeply know the importance of strength-based practices. The autonomy created by the course structure allowed for creativity, authenticity, and agency in how educators incorporated the material into their personal and professional lives. Educators incorporated strengths-based concepts into a variety of subject areas, from Special Ed to Ed. Leadership to all levels and subjects in the classroom, to School Counseling, and beyond.
Participants felt like this course and content was so meaningful they advocated on many levels, took on leadership with the content (arranging guest speakers, joining John to advocate for CAPE, sharing the fliers with colleagues, family members also in education, whole districts). Some advocated at the district leadership level by advocating for trickle down happiness. We know that students are happier when their teachers are happier. The connection with others through the course helped educators feel less professionally isolated. This sense of connection led many participants to advocate for the course and improve mental health for others in the community.
We interviewed participants who had taken the course anywhere from four months to about one and a half years prior to the interview. While many participants stated they use their wellbeing toolkit as needed, especially as they encounter new challenges, we also heard participants refer to their notes during the interview, wishing they had periodic reminders about the content; many kept their folders handy. This indicates a quality of evanescence. Participants’ connections with the content faded over time, and there seemed to be genuine interest in a second level, or some means of continuing to regularly connect with the content.
We sought to understand the lasting effect, the applications, and the lingering memories participants had from the course. What we found, however, was a ripple of themes that illustrate the deep and meaningful change that is possible when people are provided with strengths-based information and an invitation to engage in self-reflective activities; the participants connected with agency resulting in improved mental and physical health. Amazing.
You may be wondering (I know I am), what does a glimpse and quote from the illustrious Laura Perls have to do with suicide prevention slides for North Carolina State University?
If you have thoughts on the connection, please share. I see a connection, but maybe it’s just because I wanted to post both these things. First, here’s a bit of content from Laura Perls from our Counseling and Psychotherapy Theories text.
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Although the contributions of Laura Posner Perls to Gestalt therapy practice were immense, she never receives much credit, partly due to the flamboyant extraversion of Fritz and partly because her name, somewhat mysteriously (at least to us), is not on many publications. She does, however, comment freely on Fritz’s productivity at the twenty-fifth anniversary of the New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy (an organization that she co-founded with Fritz).
Without the constant support from his friends, and from me, without the constant encouragement and collaboration, Fritz would never have written a line, nor founded anything. (L. Perls, 1990, p. 18)
REFLECTIONS
We hear resentment in the preceding quotation from Laura Perls. We feel it too, because we’d like to know more about Laura and for her to have gotten the credit she deserved. If you want more Laura, here’s a nice tribute webpage: https://gestalt.org/laura.htm?ya_src=serp300. And here’s a quotation from her (obtained from the webpage and compiled by Anne Leibig): “Real creativeness, in my experience, is inextricably linked with the awareness of mortality. The sharper this awareness, the greater the urge to bring forth something new, to participate in the infinitely continuing creativeness in nature. This is what makes out of sex, love; out of the herd, society; out of wheat and fruit, bread and wine; and out of sound, music. This is what makes life livable and incidentally makes therapy possible.”
Now, don’t you want to hear more from Laura?
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And here’s the North Carolina State University link:
