The link at the bottom of this post gives you access to powerpoints for day one of our Happiness for Educators course offered at the Montana Federation of Public Employees (MFPE) annual Teachers Conference.
This course is funded through a grant from the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation (AMBFF). I’m grateful to AMBFF because the funding gives me the opportunity to work with some of the best people on the planet. I say this because my experience with educators in general, and Montana educators in particular, is phenomenal. If you’re an educator, THANK YOU for your incredible and essential service of teaching our youth.
Comments on the ppts. First, they don’t include the short videos that we’ll watch in class. Second, we may or may not get all the way through these slides . . . and that’s okay, because psychological flexibility is a sign of mental health. Third, the ppts for day two will be posted later.
Right now, maybe more than ever, there are plenty of places, spaces, and events in the world that evoke sadness, despair, anxiety, and hopelessness. Speaking for myself, I often feel the tug of despair, despite having so many people and things in my life for which I am grateful.
The purpose of the happy places activity is to expand awareness of places where we experience meaning, safety, support, and happiness. At the same time, the purpose is also to develop awareness of places, people, and contexts, that stimulate negative affect in us, such as anxiety and unhappiness. We want to be aware of how all the many dimensions of our environments influence us.
Although awareness is important, action is equally important. It’s easy to feel trapped by all the negative things happening around us and to us. Sometimes we need to push ourselves to intentionally move out of difficult places and spaces. This movement can happen mentally. As Victor Frankl wrote in his memoir about his concentration camp experiences, people can be wholly oppressed by external forces, and yet still exercise at least some mental freedom.
The happy places activity involves recognizing our power to intentionally move toward thoughts and places that are more pleasant and meaningful. As needed, when you need a break from your heavier work, you can take yourself to happier physical or mental places; you can take yourself to a pleasant mental space, or physically go somewhere—like the beautiful outdoors of Montana. Additionally, when we develop awareness of our unhappy, or unsafe spaces, we can prepare for and develop plans for dealing with those difficult places.
Below the dancing photo, you will find the long version of the happy places activity for this week. I hope you engage with it as you are able. And please, if you feel inspired, share some of what you experience with the rest of us, either here on this blog, or on one of the social media platforms listed below.
As for myself, after having a rather rough weekend, I will be infusing some thoughts and activities around the happy places concept. Good luck to you (and me).
Active Learning Assignment 3 – Three Happy Places
John Sommers-Flanagan
University of Montana
The environment, setting, or context we’re in will directly influence our mood and sense of well-being more often than we think. This is most obvious when we’re in settings or environments that we find aversive.
To start this assignment, reflect on environments, settings, or contexts that you find aversive. For example, you may find cloudy days, rain, smoky skies (or rooms), or the news (or particular news channels) aversive or uncomfortable. Other people might find churches, schools, gyms, or libraries aversive. Your context or environment can also include people. You probably find being with some people easy, and with other people, it’s much less easy.
Often, we label particular environments, contexts, smells, and people as emotionally “triggering.” Naturally, we often feel like avoiding emotionally triggering environments. Sometimes that’s possible. However, if you VALUE something enough (e.g., supporting your loved ones, or being involved in a theatre performance, or camping), you may be VERY WILLING to face and work through anxiety or other situationally-based emotional triggers (e.g., a natural disaster, fear of public speaking, or a bear phobia), to be with the people or do the things that you VALUE. More on this later.
Now, consider the opposite: What environments, settings, contexts, or people do you find pleasurable, comforting, or energizing? In Montana, many of us think of the outdoors, or the natural environment. In fact, researchers report that, in general, more time in the outdoors is linked to increased feelings of well-being and mental health.
The main point of this assignment is for you to explore and increase your awareness of “Your happy places.” Additionally, because we can’t always be in our happy places, we also encourage you to explore, increase your awareness of, and develop a personal coping plan for the situations, contexts, and people that you find triggering. As noted above, sometimes we want to face our fears or emotional triggers. If so, knowing yourself and making a coping plan can help.
After reading and reflecting on the above, contemplate, or write a few words, in response to the following prompts:
List three settings that usually trigger negativity or discomfort in you.
List three settings that usually trigger happiness and wellbeing in you (and be specific). These are your happy places
What can you do to prepare for or cope with challenging settings that usually cause you discomfort? (Other than avoiding them)
What can you do to increase the frequency of time you spend in environments that contribute to your feelings of wellness?
What can you do to create places or spaces in your mind that you can use (anywhere and anytime) to increase your sense of comfort and wellness in the moment?
Yesterday I had the honor of presenting for the Mental Health Academy’s Mental Health Super Summit. My presentation, titled “Interviewing for Happiness: How to Weave Positive Psychology Magic into the Initial Clinical Interview” is still available, along with the other presentations, through this link: https://www.mentalhealthacademy.com.au/summit. There were 24 hours of possible continuing education for an incredibly low cost. Presenters included, Dr. Judith Beck and Dr. Cirecie West-Olatunji Professor, Xavier University of Louisiana, and me! You can access my powerpoints here:
Participating in this event was an honor also because the event is a fundraiser for “Act for Kids,” an Australian charity “that delivers evidence-led professional therapy and support services to children and families who have experienced or are at risk of harm.” Over $110K has already been raised. Here’s the Act for Kids link: https://www.actforkids.com.au/.
In the piece I review some information and make one point that I’d like to share more broadly. Below are several opening paragraphs from the Op-Ed piece.
*Beginning of Excerpt*
Beyond Suicide Prevention: The Montana Happiness Challenge
John Sommers-Flanagan, Ph.D.
All September, organizations and individuals celebrated suicide prevention month, sharing information about suicide and promoting strategies for preventing suicide deaths. Although the information was life-affirming, underneath the messaging lies an unpleasant truth: Broadly speaking, suicide prevention has been failing for over two decades.
In August, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) released provisional United States suicide data for 2022. The news was bad. An estimated 49,449 Americans died by suicide in 2022—the highest number ever recorded in U.S. history.
The bad news goes far beyond last year. Suicide rates have risen every year for over 20 years, with only two puzzling exceptions. In 2020 and 2021—during the onset of COVID-19, lockdowns, and other national stressors—suicide rates declined; they declined despite the fact that by every other measure Americans were suffering from unprecedented stress, depression, anxiety, and suicidal thinking. Suicide researchers have long noted this odd pattern: higher stress, depression, anxiety, and suicidal thinking do not inevitably translate to more suicides.
If all this seems confusing—20 years of vigorous suicide prevention, and suicide rates steadily rise, while during 2 years of intensive COVID-related individual and public distress, suicide rates go down—it’s only because it is.
In his book, Rethinking suicide, Craig Bryan, a renowned suicide researcher, called suicide “a wicked problem,” noting, “Wicked problems cannot be definitively solved or completely eliminated . . .” In fact, as Bryan and others have described, efforts to eliminate wicked problems sometimes make them worse. The preceding facts don’t indicate suicide prevention doesn’t work . . . and they don’t mean COVID pandemics solve the suicide problem. What they do mean—at minimum—is that suicide prevention doesn’t work for everyone, and we need to collectively think differently about this wicked problem.
Suicide prevention ideology over-focuses on eliminating “bad” or negative thinking and behavior. This conceptualization is contrary to science and common sense. The science says that telling people to stop engaging in unhealthy behaviors usually doesn’t work. When people are judged and told they should change, they often become defensive and more resistant to change. This is human nature.
All this brings me to share one strategy for moving beyond traditional suicide prevention. We should put more energy into growing and nurturing positive and meaningful thoughts and behaviors. People are more likely to change if they’re accepted for who they are, and then invited to try something interesting.
*End of Excerpt*
If you read the preceding and have a reaction, I’d love to hear your thoughts on how, with increasing suicide prevention focus, the suicide deaths keep increasing, and why, during the two worst years of COVID, suicide deaths decreased. Feel free to post on this blog or pop me an email.
This week, for the Montana Happiness Challenge, we’re focusing on adopting a mindset where we look for joy or for what inspires us. Last week I did a day-long training on Suicide Assessment and Treatment with professionals in Canada. At the end of the day, I was inspired that they took a full-day to learn about something so hard and challenging. Similarly, if you got through this whole blog because of your interest in making the world a better place, you inspire me.
If you want to keep up with the Montana Happiness Challenge, here are some clickable options:
Why is it so easy to look for and focus in on that which annoys us . . . and so hard to look for and focus in on that which inspires us?
Nobody really knows the answer. There’s the usual speculation about evolution and potty training, but trying to find out “Why?” life is the way it is, is frustrating, as most 3-year-olds discover when they begin repeatedly asking their caregivers the Why question.
One thing is certain, if we want to focus on joy, inspiration, and small stuff that makes a positive difference, we have to be intentional. The default setting in most of our brains is to look for what’s wrong.
For this week’s Montana Happiness Challenge, we’re we’re encouraging everyone to intermittently and intentionally look for what’s right and good and inspiring. We know there is war, poverty, racism, climate change, and other big and horrible issues out there and we’re not suggesting you put your head in the sand and ignore these important problems. What we are suggesting is that you just direct your attention . . . a little more often . . . in the direction of the positive. #MHPHappinessChallenge #MontanaHappiness #WitnessInspiration
The research on mindsets is so immense that no one even bothers arguing about whether mindsets matter. They do. We all know it. Mindsets influence our performance, our success, and how we feel. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that it’s all-natural to automatically adopt negative mindsets. If you’re in a bad mood or mental state, you’ll find it easier to “see” things consistent with your bad mood.
The human psyche naturally and automatically looks for evidence to confirm what we already believe. At the same time, we tend to overlook, ignore, or dismiss whatever is inconsistent with our existing beliefs. Researchers and writers call this Confirmation bias.
Confirmation bias is everywhere, in everyone, and operating all the time. According to Brittanica.com, the formal definition is: “People’s tendency to process information by looking for, or interpreting, information that is consistent with their existing beliefs. This biased approach to decision making is largely unintentional, and it results in a person ignoring information that is inconsistent with their beliefs.” An example:
If you believe your parents or partner are hyper-critical of you, you will watch and listen for evidence to confirm your belief and be more likely to witness and experience them being critical. You will also tend to overlook or miss out noticing when they’re positive and affirming of you.
This week’s activity involves you intentionally shifting your mindset. Your goal is to look for small things that feel positive. In our University of Montana happiness class, we gave this assignment over Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend and called it: “Witness something inspiring.” We asked students to spend the weekend watching for inspirational moments in real life (not online). Students reported small and glorious outcomes, including:
A friend using good study skills
Watching my dog play in the yard
Seeing my co-worker treat a rude customer with respect
Noticing a high school student chat with a very old woman
Mindset shifting has other names. For example, in her book, Joyful, Ingrid Fetell Lee described “Joyspotting.” Joyspotting is a visual version of orienting yourself to that which brings you joy.
This week, your job is to intentionally watch, listen, and observe for things you find inspirational. If you don’t like the word inspirational, you can switch it out for joyspotting, and head out in search of joy. Although you could do an online search for “Inspirational,” we hope you’ll watch for inspiring or joyful moments in the real world.
What you notice may be small or big. The key point is to put your brain on intentional alert for that which will inspire or stimulate joy. Keep your sensory modalities open to the positive.
One warning: It’s natural to dismiss or disqualify small positive things you notice. You may see someone do something small (like hold open a door) and then quickly dismiss it as “no big deal.” For this week, try to avoid dismissing the small bright spots. Notice them, linger on them, and see what happens.
If you’re into the social media part of this challenge, we hope you’ll share your experiences. Using your favorite social media platform, consider sharing:
What it was like to intentionally watch for inspiration.
A description of what you observed.
Reactions you had to the inspirational event.
Anything else you want to add.
You can do this activity all on your own, or you can do it with a friend, a class, or a community.
Good luck . . . we look forward to your inspirational stories.
I like knowing a little trivia. It’s probably related to wanting to maintain a positive view of myself. If I know a little trivia, maybe that makes me more competent.
Trivia of the day: Hardly any of you know that my friends Mike Bevill, Neil Balholm, Greg Hopkins, and I invented Karaoke in Mike Bevill’s basement back in 1974. Neil had a portable microphone system. We’d plug it in, put on background music, and belt out tunes, as if we were Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young, Bevill, Balhoum, Hopkins, and Sommers. We created a fake band, named ourselves the “Nugget Brothers,” and sang with great enthusiasm, but little talent, along with a variety of pop musicians.
One odd outcome of this was my continued preoccupation with creating fake bands into and after college, despite nearly complete lack of talent. As an example of the awkwardness of youth, I could “fake perform” to large groups, but I was unable to speak up in classes. Weird, I know. My guess is it was safer to publicly perform with no talent that it was to do so in areas where I was serious.
Here’s a photo attesting to my fake band performance legacy.
As a part of the Montana Happiness Challenge, we’ve been encouraging people to share their favorite songs. . . and now we’re taking it to the next step. Please, if you will, share yourself singing a song that makes you happy, or that you find meaningful. Post it on social media and give us a tag or hashtag: #MHPHappinessChallenge or #MontanaHappiness.
You may wonder, other than embarrassment and social media humiliation, what’s the point? The point is that singing is nearly always therapeutic, partly because of what’s happening in the brain. Think about it.
Singing involves movement, creativity, feedback and adjustment, listening, planning, memory, and language. Some researchers emphasize that singing triggers the release of the so-called “feel-good” neurotransmitter dopamine, which is a limited view, because there’s also more serotonin at the synapse, an oxytocin shower, and more or less involvement by 100s of other neurotransmitters, neuromodulators, and brain structures (including, but not limited to the hippocampus, insula, frontal lobe, Wernicke’s region, occipital cortex, and motor cortex). If you want to light up your brain, sing!
For the Montana Happiness Challenge, we highly recommend singing out loud. Although we would love to watch and listen to you singing on social media, if that’s not your thing, go ahead and sing in the shower, while housecleaning, in the car, or anywhere else you can let your joy happen.
One last point. Research on positive emotions indicate that we don’t need to have BIG positive emotions to experience happiness and well-being benefits. What’s important is to weave in many intermittent small positive emotions. IMHO, singing privately or publicly is one way to give yourself frequent positive emotional boosts.
For my part, I’ve recorded three videos on my social media singing. These videos are silly and embarrassing, which I’m completely embracing. I got nervous for each of these videos and didn’t even say all of what I planned to say. Feel free to skip them and/or #neverspeakofthem.
Thanks for reading this. Please share everything you can about the Montana Happiness Project. Our goal is to reach MANY people with free ideas about positive emotions and meaningful happiness.
Today is the official launch of the Montana Happiness Challenge. For the next 20 weeks we’ll be trying to spread happiness from social media into classrooms, kitchens, boardrooms, ballrooms, and everywhere else you’ll help us spread it.
The concept is simple.
Happiness takes work and involves behavior. We’re not JUST talking about “smiley” hedonic happiness; we’re also talking about eudaimonic, meaning-filled happiness.
Today’s activity involves music. You can interpret this and share this in nearly any way you like. You can just post your #Happysong somewhere, or share it with a friend, family, coworker, or classroom. You can also sing. . . and post it on Youtube or Facebook or Insta or wherever you like. You can include our cumbersome hashtags #MHPHappinessChallenge and #MontanaHappiness and Tag us, or just stay quiet. But, if you like, don’t shy away from posting photos of yourself singing, even if they’re slightly embarrassing, like this one.
Below is the full description of the first Happiness Activity. Please engage and experience and experiment as you wish. . . all week long!
Happiness Activity 1 – Music, Mood, and Meaning
John Sommers-Flanagan, Ph.D.
University of Montana
Music in general, and songs in particular, trigger happiness, sadness, other emotions, and life memories. Sometimes our emotional responses to music are all about the music. Other times our emotional responses are about personal emotions and memories that the songs trigger. For example, when I listen to “Joy to the World” by Three Dog Night, I’m transported back to positive memories I had playing 9th grade basketball. The song, “Put the Lime in the Coconut” by Harry Nilsson will forever take me back to a car accident with my sister in 1973. It’s not unusual for us to turn to music for help regulating our emotions, or to deepen particular feelings. The connection between music and mood is so powerful that psychological researchers frequently use music when they want to manipulate the mood of their research participants.
For this assignment, do the following:
Part One: Your Happy Song(s)
Select a song or songs that trigger positive emotions. We’ll call that your #HappySong.
Listen to your happy song once or twice, or whatever it takes to let the song do its work. You can do this with your family or a friend or by yourself. Consider how you might use that song to intentionally elevate your mood.
At minimum, share your #HappySong on social media or with your friends/family. You can just share the name and artist, provide a link to the song.
Because creating music and singing can be especially powerful, consider making a clip of yourself performing your #HappySong.
If you want to get deeper, you can share on your favorite social media platform why that’s a happy song for you or how you use it as a “go-to” happy song when you need an emotional lift, or you can share your personal memories around the song.
Part Two: Your Meaningful Songs
Sometimes music gives us an emotional boost. Other times, it helps us go deeper into challenging emotions or allows us to find meaning in hard times. When I was struggling in graduate school, I would often listen to Paul Simon’s “American Tune” or “Immigrant Song.” I very much resonated with these (and other) lyrics “I don’t know a dream that’s not been shattered, or driven to its knees.” Often the tears would flow. [I love this version, with Simon and Rhiannon Giddens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67pyIglP79U]
For the meaning part of this activity, consider the following:
Share a song that holds meaning for you. This might be a song you listen to when feeling sad or angry or scared. While I was teaching a Happiness Class at the University of Montana, a student shared a beautiful song by Mandoline Orange (now Watchhouse) titled, “Golden Embers” Golden Embers is about the death of the singer’s mother. My mother died not long after I heard this song, and even though the lyrics don’t perfectly fit my experience or my mother, when I listen I think of her and let myself feel the grief I have around the loss of her presence in my life and in the world. You can listen to Golden Embers here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEt2lf7L13g
As with the Happy Songs above, you can just share the song with your friends/family/colleagues or share it on your favorite social media platform. You can also go into details about why the song is emotionally meaningful for you. Do this is whatever way you find meaningful and share what you’re comfortable sharing.
Obviously, this is a much more vulnerable activity than the Happy Song version . . . and so participate only to the extent that feels okay for you. Also, if you notice others posting their emotionally meaningful songs, please find ways to offer support and respect for their insights and vulnerability.
Thanks for reflecting on how music affects our emotions, life meaning, and quality of life. I hope you’ll stay tuned for our next Happiness Activity coming out Sunday, October 8.
P.S.: for those of you who want to read more about music, mood, and meaning, here’s a recent Washington Post article, compliments of Lillian Martz from the University of Montana:
I’m taking the opportunity this fine Sunday afternoon to post a blog piece that Rita wrote earlier this week. Oddly, or perhaps not that oddly for those who know her, Rita has an alter-identity that she refers to as “Dr. Bossypants.” In this alternate voice, Rita refers to herself in third person and lets herself be a bit more pedantic than she is in real life.
In this blog post, Dr. Bossypants jumps into the domain of forgiveness and offers up ideas that I found exquisitely interesting and very helpful.
Without further ado, I’d like you to meet, my friend, Dr. Bossypants.
Turns out, yesterday was Tuesday, not Friday. I got so disoriented yesterday that by the day’s end, I was emailing people and telling them to have a great Labor Day weekend. My excuse is that I got 17 new stitches in my forehead during a 4.5 hour marathon Mohs surgery on Monday. Sheesh. Now I’m a poster-boy for sun block. See the photo at the bottom of this post for the evidence.
I’m posting today (Wednesday, not Saturday!) to let you know about a unique opportunity, and to ask for your support.
Beginning this September (National Suicide Prevention Month), the Montana Happiness Project, L.L.C., in collaboration with Families First Learning Lab, is launching a 20-week Happiness Activity Challenge. Using various social media platforms, this campaign guides participants through 20 distinct evidence-based positive psychology interventions designed to increase personal happiness and life meaning.
This Campaign will be available for free, online, through social media. Because we’re offering it for free, we’re looking for two levels of support.
Collaborator: Being a collaborator costs you nothing. All it means is that you’re publicly saying that you support our efforts at spreading evidence-based happiness and will share our happiness activities with colleagues, friends, and perhaps formally engage your organization to participate. If you’re a collaborator, we’ll put your name or organization name and logo on our website.
Sponsor: We’re asking specific organizations to partner with us to sponsor each week. To sponsor a week, we ask for a $500 contribution. In return, we’ll include your Logo and our Thanks in our social media posts for the week. This will include posts on Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, WordPress, and on our Squarespace Montana Happiness Project website. If you’re a sponsor, we’d love for you to encourage your staff to participate in this happiness promotion activity, talk about it with each other, and post about it on social media.
You may wonder, if we can be collaborators and my staff and colleagues can participate for free, why be a sponsor? That’s a great question. We’re doing our Happiness Challenge as an act of kindness for the people of Montana and beyond and acts of kindness are evidence-based happiness strategies. We hope you’ll join us, perform an act of kindness, and sponsor at least one homework week.
Whether you’re a collaborator, sponsor, or evesdropper, we hope you’ll engage with our happiness challenge to see if participation in some or all of our 20-day happiness project helps you (and your staff, friends, family, etc.) feel happier.
Below, I’ve answered a few questions:
Who can participate? – Anyone. Our primary focus is Montana, but our goal is to reach out and promote positivity and happiness to anyone and everyone who is interested.
Howmuch does it cost? – Nothing. Nada. Nil. This is free because we believe life is hard and people need support, skills, and to have hope for greater happiness.
Do I have to commit to all 20 homework assignments? – Nope. We’re doing this on social media. You can participate as much or as little as possible. You can be explicitly active by posting and sharing about your experiences, but you can also keep your experiences to yourselves.
Are the homework assignments really evidence-based? – Yes. Nearly all of the assignments have direct scientific support as “interventions” that increase happiness and decrease depression. That doesn’t mean increased happiness and decreased depression are guaranteed, because even “effective” interventions don’t work for everyone. . . but they’re worth a try. A few of the assignments don’t have direct experimental support, but they’re based on concepts shown to increase happiness and meaningfulness.
What’s the catch? – No catch. We’re offering this experience as an act of kindness because we think it’s a good thing. We also recognize that positive psychology or evidence-based happiness interventions are not a great fit for everyone. Just do what you can when you can if you can.
How can I contribute to the idea of sharing evidence-based happiness knowledge and skills? – We hope you will do this activity with co-workers, friend, and/or family. We hope you’ll share it on social media, or talk with your children about your experiences over dinner. If you’re especially inspired by our 20-week Happiness Challenge, you’re welcome to donate (not required, but appreciated) to Families First Learning Lab. Just let the good people at Families First know that your donation is to support the FFLL Happiness Project.
I’d end with “Mark your calendars!” but given that I’m still not certain that I’m fully oriented to time, I’ll just say, thanks for reading all this and considering full engagement with our Happiness Challenge.
I’ve spent the morning learning. At this point in my life, learning requires simultaneous regulation of my snarky irreverence. Although I intellectually know I don’t know everything, when I discover, as I do ALL. THE. TIME., that I don’t know something, I have to humble myself unto the world.
Okay. I know I’m being a little dramatic.
After pushing “submit” on our latest effort to publish Round 1 of our happiness class data, less than an hour later I received a message from the very efficient editor that our manuscript had been “Unsubmitted.” Argh! The good news is that the editor was just letting us know that we needed to follow the manuscript submission guidelines and include a “Structured Abstract.” Who knew?
The best news is I wrote a structured abstract and discovered that I like structured abstracts way more than I like traditional abstracts. So, that’s cool.
And, here it is!
Abstract
Background: University counseling center services are inadequate to address current student mental health needs. Positive psychology courses may be scalable interventions that address student well-being and mental health.
Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of a multi-component positive psychology course on undergraduate student well-being, mental health, and physical health.
Method: We used a quantitative, quasi-experimental, pretest-posttest design. Participants in a multi-component positive psychology course (n = 38) were compared to a control condition (n = 41). All participants completed pre-post measures of well-being, physical health, and mental health.
Results: Positive psychology students reported significant improved well-being and physical health on eight of 18 outcome measures. Although results on the depression scale were not statistically significant, a post-hoc analysis of positive psychology students who were severely depressed at pretest reported substantial depression symptom reduction at posttest, whereas severely depressed control group students showed no improvement.
Conclusion:Positive psychology courses may produce important salutatory effects on student physical and mental health. Future research should include larger samples, random assignment, and greater diversity.
Teaching Implications: Psychology instructors should collaborate with student affairs to explore how positive psychology courses and interventions can facilitate student well-being, health, and mental health.
The place to click if you want to learn about psychotherapy, counseling, or whatever John SF is thinking about.
John Sommers-Flanagan 