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Hello and welcome to Happier, a podcast where we talk about ideas and strategies for making everyday life happier, healthier, more productive, and more creative.
This week we'll talk about why you might consider going on a themed retreat and what to do if you're trapped in a crowd.
I'm Gretchen Rubin, a writer who studies happiness, good habits, secrets of adulthood, to human nature.
I am in Encino, California, coming to you from my sister's guest room.
And joining me today from her office right across the house is my sister, Elizabeth Craft, my sister, the host. That's me, Elizabeth Craft, a TV writer and producer living in L .A.
And Gretchen, I feel we've discovered a new Zoom backdrop there in my guest room.
So I'm very excited.
It's a whole new vista.
Yes. But before we jump in, we have a few updates.
Yes. Mia said, I'm a mother of two young children and I'm finding it really hard to find time to read for myself.
I wanted to do the read 25 and 25, but couldn't find the time.
When one of you said reading to your child still counted, I realized I do this daily and I'm achieving the 25 and 25.
It made me so happy to know that just because your reading looks different at the the moment, it can still count.
I love that. All reading counts.
And picture books can be amazing literature.
I'm a huge fan of picture books.
Yes. And then this came from Rhonda.
She says, thanks for inspiring me to take action.
Your recent podcast referred to identifying the ugliest thing and then fixing it.
Mine has been my jewelry storage.
Every time I reached for one of my delicate necklaces, the chains were knotted.
I just gave up and dropped them back in their little compartment.
You can't use what's not ready to go, so it was time to put them in order.
I unclasped each tangled necklace and placed it on a light -colored tray, then used two straight pins to gently pull out the knots.
Hint, the reading light that drapes over a person's neck really helped show the chains.
Once untangled, I looped the necklace through a straw and fastened the clasp.
Each success made me want to get up and dance, but I didn't want to alarm my husband and startle the dog.
One thing led to another.
My necklaces are neatly placed with anti -tarnish strips in a drawer.
I sorted the other good jewelry and even polished some tarnished silver items. I sorted costume jewelry and put some in a donation pile.
It felt good to tackle this ugly, annoying problem.
Wow. Many good solutions in this scratch. And many, many helpful hacks, the straw, the two straight pins, the light.
I mean, I've heard that that is the best way to untangle necklaces.
Instead of trying to undo the knot, you just pull it wider and wider and wider, and then it becomes very easy to see how to unknot it.
But a lot of times it's like, you just keep putting it off because you're in a hurry at a particular moment.
You really need to that say, okay, I'm going to sit down, turn on the TV or a podcast and like do this with all the proper tools and do it systematically.
And then you feel so great.
And then you've reclaimed these things that you haven't been able to use or give them away.
Yeah. And the straw is a great solution for travel because I find whatever I do to my necklaces when I travel, they tangle.
And it's so frustrating.
And a straw you can cut to be the right length.
So that's a great hack.
Yes. And this week, our Try This at Home suggestion is to consider a themed retreat.
And we got this idea because we just did a themed retreat, which was amazing.
Yes, we had our reading retreat.
We've been talking about it, I think, since January.
We put it on our 25 for 25 list, and we knew we wanted to do it because of Read 25 and 25, and it happened, and it was amazing.
It was so fun. And it was so delightful.
I mean, one thing I realized is how happy I am to just say, like, well, we're going to go out for a meal and then we'll go for a walk.
And now we've got to go back to the hotel room so we have time to read.
You know, there's no sightseeing.
There's no scheduling.
You're just reading.
It was so delightful.
It was so delightful.
It was so relaxing.
But yet it felt like we were really accomplishing something.
Yes. yes we had a really nice airy room so it was just lovely to lay in bed and read yeah thank goodness they were comfortable beds they were very good and you and i both love to read in bed so a couple things is we sort of rarely sometimes give ourselves permission to do something that we really love to do and here we really set aside and we've done a lot of things read 25 and 25 that is meant to do accomplish that every day but reading is something that is just very easy for people to push at the bottom of the list. And this is a good reminder, like, this is really valuable.
This is a valuable activity.
And putting meditation after anything makes it feel sort of more important and elevated, like waiting in the bus meditation or doctor's office meditation.
Calling something a retreat just automatically makes it feel elevated and purposeful and like, okay, we're all in on this.
And you could imagine all kinds of different retreats.
But we found ways that in hindsight really made this work to be easier and also less expensive than it might have otherwise been.
Yeah. So one was we built this around a time when you had to travel to Los Angeles for work.
Yes. So we decided you were already getting that plane ticket.
So we decided, okay, let's find a place within driving distance of LA.
So then I don't need to buy a plane ticket.
You don't need to buy another plane ticket.
And it also set our time because it's that thing of something that can be done anytime is done in no time so it gave us a focus.
Yeah it got rid of that decision fatigue of when and where so those two things were decided and we did it during the week which not everybody could do something like this during the week and we did have to kind of at certain times do work related things but we tried to clear our calendars as much as we could and by doing it during the week we made it much less expensive because of the place we stayed and and also even going to restaurants and things, everything just felt calmer and quieter.
We didn't make any reservations.
We just went when we wanted.
It felt sort of more like hooky.
I kept thinking, oh my gosh, today's a Monday?
It doesn't feel like a Monday.
It was very exciting.
Yeah, I will say also, if you're driving from LA, not going on a Friday and Sunday also makes driving easier because traffic can be so nuts when you're trying to get somewhere.
But what we realized is this doesn't have to be fancy.
You don't need to have a beautiful cabin and buy a lake or buy a plane ticket.
It's really about clearing a block of time and making a plan to devote yourself to something.
And I think this is a great know yourself better question, which is what would I want to have a retreat dedicated to?
What sounds fun to me?
And that will show you what you want more of in your life.
I mean, it could be hiking.
It could be biking.
It could be board games.
I could imagine somebody being going on a puzzle retreat.
Oh yeah. Sarah would love nothing There's nothing more than to go in a puzzle retreat.
Right. Well, and then there's silent meditation retreats, of course.
I did a silent meditation retreat with Dan Harris, and it was like an official retreat where I went away.
But then for Life in Five Senses, I wanted a silence retreat where it wasn't about the meditation.
It was just about living in silence.
So I kicked my family out of the apartment, and they all went to stay with my in -laws for the weekend.
And I just had a silence retreat in my own apartment.
But I do think it's fun to go away.
It makes it feel more special.
It takes you out of your ordinary routine.
I do think that it was really nice that we incorporated that.
We could have done a reading retreat in your house, but it's different when you go away.
No, it's nice to go away.
Gretchen, this makes me think that on Fantasy Island, we had a woman who her fantasy was just to sleep.
She was sleep deprived.
And that makes me think, you know, a new mom could go on a sleep retreat or even have a sleep retreat at home where she arranges for others to be situated such that she can get some sleep.
but by calling it a sleep retreat, she's again elevating what's happening and signaling to people that that's what's happening.
Or maybe you say like, Elizabeth, as your sister, I want to offer you a sleep retreat and like arrange that.
And then you're like, oh my gosh, that sounds amazing.
That's better than, oh, I'll babysit.
But you know what also occurred to me, Elizabeth?
We dedicated time to something that we love to do, but maybe you use a retreat to to do something you don't like to do, like a procrastination busting retreat.
Like we want to get caught up on our photo albums and we're going to do that together in this retreat.
Or we're going to all work on our books of life with all of the details or update resumes or everybody in the retreat is working on different things, but you're just saying, we're going to set aside this time.
And again, it's your whole thing about give it a name, make it fun.
It's a little bit of whimsy.
There's a little bit of indulgence and pleasure around things that you're doing.
And so you're just doing these unpleasant things together.
And that in itself makes it more fun.
And yet you do have that feeling of accomplishment, which did make our retreat.
Our retreat didn't feel like we were eating potato chips.
It felt significant and meaningful and like a good use of our time.
And I think that made a difference.
Yeah, Gretchen, I'm just thinking, you know, it would be fun is a trifecta retreat where you pick your one word symbol for the year, you do your list for the year, and then you like set your mind to the challenge of the year that would be so fun and it's such an intimate thing to do with people like if you were wanting to bond with friends it'd be so fun to talk about it and then you do all your planning you could also look do a to -da sometimes we talk about you do the look back and look forward you could review the previous years like go through your calendars talk about everything you did in the previous year
give yourselves that to -da i can imagine you could do a retreat where you're planning for the empty nest maybe you're really coming up on the emptiness so you're planning?
Or maybe it's years away, because now that I'm talking about it, a lot of times people are like, I really need to start thinking about this now.
And I say, yes, you really should start thinking about it now because you can really affect how that transition unfolds by planning.
And so again, this is something where by calling it a retreat and making time for it, you could make that a lot more easy.
Yeah. We were even thinking you could do a binge -watching retreat.
Binge -watch Game of Thrones.
You could binge -watch Transparent.
You and I were just talking about how much we love Transparent.
I'm like, yeah, we can just binge -watch it together.
Yeah. And you actually did this.
I did. Well, this is a kind of a retreat, which you might call like a forced recovery retreat, where it's like I was recovering from having four wisdom teeth pulled out, and I was in Kansas City.
And so mom and I decided to watch the entire original series of Anne of Green Gables together while I was recovering.
remembering and we still talk about that fondly by saying, okay, we're going to do this and we're just going to sit down and watch it back to back.
It transformed that really, you know, not very pleasant time, which I'm sure I wouldn't even remember now, except that we turned it into an Anna Green Gables retreat and that made it very fun to think about.
Yeah. So another thing to think about is do you want to do this alone, like a solo retreat, which is great, or do you want company.
And it could be one person.
You and I just had two of us.
You could have four people.
You could have five.
You could have, you know, a couple's retreat of some sort.
I mean, there's just any of it works.
Yeah. The one thing that we noticed, this is the one thing that we learned, is that you want something to make it very memorable.
Now, I think this will be memorable because it was our first one.
But if we did five reading retreats, which we definitely want to do, do.
I wonder if we should plan like one splashy adventure to really make it distinctive in our mind because when things are very similar and reading is, the book is memorable, but not the experience.
So anyway, that's just something that I would think about next time is like one signature adventure for the retreat.
Because next time we think we would like to do it for three nights, not two nights.
So then we would have a little bit of extra time.
Yes. Because in two nights, if we had done an adventure, that would have taken up a quarter of our time.
So yes, But yeah, three nights, I think, would be fantastic.
Well, in a future episode, we will share some voice memos that we took along the way.
Capped with the clearing of Alyssa's closet, which, of course, for me was a highlight.
Not so much for her, but for me, it was delightful.
We'll share our voice memos from that trip.
Yeah, and Gretch, I want to thank the listener who suggested Los Olivos for our spot.
We had asked, what's a good place for a reading retreat?
retreat somebody suggested Los Olivos which is wine country outside of Santa Barbara and Santa Ynez Valley and we went to the inn at Maddie's Tavern it was beautiful so thank you to the reader who suggested that yeah we loved it so let us know if you do try this at home and how a themed retreat works for you what kind of themed retreat sounds good to you let us know on Instagram threads TikTok Facebook or drop us an email at podcast at gretchenmoving .com as always you can can go to the show notes.
This is happiercast .com slash 545.
Coming up, we've got a happiness hack to use if you're ever caught in a crowd and you want to get out of it.
But first, this break.
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Okay, Gretch, we are back with this week's happiness hack.
And I find it very interesting that this comes from our reading of War and Peace.
peace. Yeah, so we're following along with Simon Hasel's slow read of War and Peace with his Substack, Footnotes and Tangents.
And one of the things that's fun about doing the slow read is that every week he sends out background information, helpful information about the section that we've just read.
And in one of the emails, he discussed an episode that did happen in Russian history.
It was an incident where almost 1 ,300 people died in Moscow in 1896 during festivities connected to the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II.
And these people were trampled because there were so many crowds and there were sort of rumors that all these gifts were going to be given away and people got trampled.
And you hear about this from time to time.
And that got me really curious.
Elizabeth, I don't know if you've ever wondered this.
What do you do if you're caught in a crowd and you start to honestly feel scared?
So what do you do? Okay.
If you're feeling trapped in a crowd, okay, what you really want to do is you want to stay calm and you want to protect your chest and head.
So you want to think about getting in that boxer stance with your arms up and your elbows are bent and your hands are near your chest because that's going to protect breathing space and your rib cage so that you can keep breathing.
That is one of the big things is can you breathe?
And when the crowd is moving, move with the crowd.
Don't try to fight against the crowd because if you're moving with the crowd, you'll be able to stay on your feet.
You'll keep your balance because what you do not want to do is fall and get trampled.
So you want to stay away as much as you can from walls or barriers because then you can get trapped against them.
And then the pressure on you is increasing because you can't move away.
And as much as you can, you want to edge toward the crowd's periphery where it will be less dense.
You want to move to the outside as much as you can.
And if you do fall, you immediately want to stand back up if you can.
And if you can't, hurl into a ball to protect your head and neck.
And you don't want to start screaming or yelling.
You want to control your breathing because you want your oxygen.
That is what you're protecting.
Yeah, this is interesting.
It came up for Jamie and me recently because we were at a Knicks game and, you know, the Knicks have been doing really well.
And so there would be huge crowds outside of Madison Square Garden, all very like joyous and happy crowds.
But it was kind of scary.
And we exited through the main exit right into the heart of the crowd.
And we didn't sort of realize that this would be an issue.
But then we did everything that you're not supposed to do.
we started trying to find our way out.
There was a barrier, because there was a police barrier on the avenue.
It was very choked, and it did feel tight, and I didn't fear for my life, but I was definitely like, this is not very pleasant.
I would like to get out of here, and then we did, and it was fine, but then the next time, when we were in a similar thing, we left out of a different exit.
Within Madison Square Garden, we walked very far inside the building to kind of a lesser exit on the edge.
So then when we left, we were on the edge of the crowd.
Whereas when we had exited before, we just walked right out into the middle of the crowd.
But we only knew to do that because it had happened to us before.
Whereas now that I know this, I think I would have looked at the crowd out there and been like, okay, why don't I be a little bit more strategic about making my exit rather than just diving in and like fighting my my way through.
Well, and I wonder if you're with somebody, if you should sort of immediately say, if we get separated, meet at X, Y, Z spot.
Yes. Because trying to stay together can be super difficult in a crowd.
No, it can't. And then I think that is how you get pulled off your feet or something because you're trying to hold hands or anyway.
Yeah, that's really good advice.
Like you make your way, I'll make my way and then we'll meet up in X place.
That would have been a really good advice.
So anyway, happiness hacks from more in peace.
There you go. Okay.
And And Elizabeth, now for a question related to the empty nest, or as I'm calling it, the open door.
Here's a question. And let's ponder this.
So one of the things that happened after Jamie and I dropped Eleanor off at college freshman year was that several friends texted just saying like, hey, how did it go?
Or hope you had good travels or whatever.
And it was very nice.
I really appreciated that they marked this milestone and acknowledged that this big thing happened to us.
and it got me thinking that we don't really have any traditions for parents except maybe ordering extra long sheets to mark the stage of life which is a very if you're going through it it's a very significant stage of life and you know there are all these new traditions so like there's the baby moon there's the push present there's dog birthday parties there's santa con there's galentine's day there's gender reveal parties so it's not like we can't as people come up with new traditions so I'm I'm like, let's get a new tradition around the open door.
Well, and Gretch, it's always fun to see what new traditions people start.
You know they're out there.
Yes. So it occurred to me that something that people often do as sort of a marker of this time that would be great to have a name for, like the way you have a baby moon.
It's not like everybody has a baby moon, which is when you go away with your spouse or your sweetheart right before you have a baby, kind of your last trip away without children.
So that's the baby moon.
But we have a name for it, and that's kind of fun.
It kind of makes it into a thing.
What I was thinking of is that a lot of people, and it's conventional advice, which is if you're worried about coming home after you drop off your children, and maybe it's your last child, so now the whole house doesn't have kids in it, and you're thinking that that might be distressing, plan a trip right away.
I have a friend who's like, we dropped off our kids, we came home, we picked up our suitcases that were already packed, and we headed to the airport.
It gives you something to look forward to.
It mixes things up.
Whenever we travel and do new things, time changes.
And so it might help you get over that transition.
You don't have that abrupt shift. And then you have something to look forward in your own life.
There's a lot of reasons why it makes sense.
And I thought, what would you call that trip?
Like a baby moon, what would be a clever name for that trip?
It's like the door flinging open trip or the, I don't know.
I'm just starting to spitball this.
Yeah. I love that idea.
I have to think about it because naming it will make it more special.
It'll make it more special, and you'll feel like, oh, this is like a traditional thing that people do.
Like, this is a thing that happens, and I think it might make it more likely that people think about it.
And again, it's not like you have to fly across the world.
I mean, maybe you just drive a couple hours to see an old friend, but you give yourself that space and that time.
But yeah, I'm just starting to think about it.
I want to come up with a really creative name for it.
It'll be like Valentine's Day, which was invented on the TV show Parks and Recreation.
And now it's a thing because it just came from going commando is something that came from friends.
That was not a phrase that was widely used.
So we can start these things.
So, Elizabeth, let's do it.
Yes, I love it. I want to hear what people think we should do, Reg.
Because I'll be having this in a few years.
Yes. Send us your suggestions.
All right. Coming up, we have a know yourself better question.
But first, this break.
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But when TV people are away, their houses and apartments just sit there in L .A.
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Well, this year, as we are all trying to work smarter and not harder, I know people who are hosting their space on Airbnb while they're out of town.
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Okay, Gretch, we are back and we have a Know Yourself Better question.
Okay, so this is a Know Yourself Better question that is related to something that we talk about about all the time which is to identify the problem that often we have kind of a feeling that things are difficult or they make us uneasy but we haven't actually identified the problem so I had this related to know yourself better which is if you know anything about me Elizabeth one thing you know and tell me if you think this is true is you know that I suffer from the cold yes indeed you do I get very cold in situations where other people are not cold and I particularly get cold in the water.
And so, okay, now we have our dream lake house and a new tradition that I really wanted to enforce was that on the 4th of July, Jamie, Eliza, Eleanor, and I would all jump into the lake at the same time.
And I was really dreading this and I realized, okay, identify the problem.
What is the problem?
The problem is I feel very cold.
Unless it's like 110 degrees, I don't like to get wet.
Okay. Know yourself better.
Okay. I always suffer from the cold.
cold. That's why this is a problem for me.
But once I identified the problem, I'm really cold when I'm in the water.
I realized there's a solution for that.
You got yourself a wetsuit.
I got myself a wetsuit.
It was not that expensive.
It was $55. It's not like the kind that you do if you're like underwater for six hours or something.
This is for moderate temperatures for water sports.
It had short sleeves and shorts.
It's not easy to get into, but it's not extremely difficult to get into.
Like, I could do it.
And can I just say, this was money that was so well spent.
It's better to buy experiences, not things.
Yeah. But this gave me the experience of being in the water.
Jamie had bought an inflatable paddleboard, and I was, like, using the paddleboard. I was jumping in the water.
I was swimming so happily because I wasn't cold.
You were frolicking in the water.
I was frolicking in the water and I never did that because I was cold.
It just takes the edge off so I can be in the water very happily.
And here's the bonus that I didn't anticipate.
I don't know about you, but I do feel self -conscious sometimes when I'm just walking around in my wet bathing suit, getting in and out of the water and just hanging around.
And the thing about a wetsuit is it's more like wearing shorts on a top.
Right. And it's thick and it's warm and it's comfortable.
It's very stretchy.
and so it just made the whole experience of playing in the water so much more fun for me and so I feel like it's one of the best purchases that I've made in years.
That is so great Gretch especially because it's around your new tradition your new Fourth of July tradition.
Yes. It's extra exciting and you can just keep the wetsuit at the house.
Yes. And always have it there.
Yes and it's one of these things where like now I can really use something you know we talk about we'll use the advantages that your house or apartment offers to you, it's like now I feel like I'll enjoy it so much more.
Yes. Because I kayak, but I don't get wet when I kayak, so I just wear my regular clothes, but now I can actually get in the lake.
Well, it's so fun. Next time I'm there, I want to see you frolicking in the water.
You'll see it. And now, Gretchen, it's time for Demerits and Gold Stars.
You're up with a happiness demerit this week.
This is sort of a funny one.
So when when I moved to New York city, I was like, there's a bazillion people in New York city.
And I kind of just always assumed that I would never see people again.
Like, Oh, somebody is delivering UPS packages, but I'll never see that person again.
Or I'm in the drug store, but I'll never see that person again.
Or, but guess what?
You do. That's the person who works at the drug store by my apartment.
They are going to be there the next time.
And yet I sort of never consciously grappled with this until Taffy, if you have a puppy, be everybody who's walking their dogs stops to talk to you and then Tappy wants to see their dogs and sometimes they want to put up with a puppy and sometimes they don't so it's always like a little conversation and I realized that I was thinking well I'm never going to see this person and their dog again so like I don't have to make any effort to sort of remember that this dog's name is Boxer this dog's name is Leonardo or whatever but it's like no they live in my neighborhood they walk their dogs I'm going
to see them again yeah okay remember that make an an effort.
They're not just going to vanish into the multitudes.
That's good, Gretchen.
You know, that's how a lot of people make new friends is walking their dog.
A thousand percent.
And like getting to know your neighbors is a huge source of happiness.
I probably see people all the time.
I have a friend who says that he specifically goes out of his way to always try to make repeat purchases in the same place, the same newsstand, or like he buys his coffee from the same place because he's like, it makes you feel more connected to your neighborhood if you have these repeat relationships rather than today I go here, today I go there, today I go by my office, whatever.
And I thought that that's a really nice idea.
It's just like a water rushing by me.
I'll never step into the same river again.
It's like, we are going to step into that exact same river again.
So pay attention. Even in a big city.
Yes, even in a big city.
So Alyssa, what is your gold star?
Take us up. So Gretchen, my gold star goes to Chris Martin from Coldplay.
Now for anybody who who missed this?
There was recently a Coldplay concert, and during the concert, they always do a kiss cam, where Chris Martin sees who's in the audience, and it's like a kiss cam.
And it landed on a couple who were snuggling.
And when they realized they were on camera, they basically panicked.
The man ducked under the camera's view.
The woman put her hands over over her face and spun out of frame.
And Chris Martin, and this is part of my gold star, had the presence of mind to say, oh, my gosh, either those two people are very shy or they're having an affair.
Yeah. And it turned out they were having an affair.
Yeah. Now, obviously, we feel really badly for whoever was at home and now is dealing with this.
Yes. But for some reason, this moment has brought together I would say the nation but it's really the world yeah it has captured our imagination and has spawned all sorts of other videos and memes yeah it's also of our time with social media things going viral and Chris Martin had such presence of mind I mean he's obviously not phoning it in there on stage he's paying great attention to what's going on.
And it also kind of brings him down to a human level.
Maybe that's another reason that people find it uniting.
It's like this big pop star is suddenly just like all of us.
Right. Well, it's interesting because there's a book called Performance by Livingston Taylor, which is a book which I love.
It's very short, but it's all about stage performance.
And one of the things he emphasizes as a performer, your most important obligation obligation is to be present with the audience, to not be so caught up in your own experience, not phoning it in, like you say, or not so focused on what you're doing that they all kind of blur away, but that he really argues that you want to be really aware of what they are experiencing.
And that gives us this feeling of connection to the performer.
And exactly. I mean, I think part of what it was is like, he was seeing what we were seeing.
He was thinking what a viewer would would think.
And so you did, you felt this whole connection to everybody in the moment because it is just remarkable how much this did just come to everyone's attention, this tiny moment.
Yes. Everyone from my 15 -year -old son to my 90 -year -old father -in -law were well aware of what had happened.
Yeah. Even if they'd never heard of Coldplay.
Yes, exactly. And the resource source for this week.
I am having so much fun on my new Substack project called Secrets of Adulthood.
Alyssa, you and I had many conversations about Substack on our reading retreat because we both are loving Substack.
Indeed we did. And one of the things I love is I get to do these incredible live conversations with amazing people.
I had one with Susan Cain.
I had one with Yung Pueblo.
I'm in August. I'm going to go live with my old friend Dan Harris of 10 % Happier with Joanna Joanna Goddard from Cup of Joe to talk about their secrets of adulthood, which I have an insatiable desire to hear people's secrets of adulthood.
You can join the live sessions or watch afterward. Plus, I always share a written recap of all the best insights and highlights from the conversation.
So you can subscribe so you do not miss out.
Just go to secretsofadulthood .substack .com or just search for Gretchen Rubin, Secrets of Adulthood, Substack, wherever.
And Elizabeth, what are we reading?
I just finished Rivals by Jilly Cooper.
And I just finished A Town Like Alice by Neville Shute.
You and I, now we need to decide what we're going to read next.
Always so fun to decide.
And that's it for this episode of Happier.
Remember to try this at home.
Consider a themed retreat.
Let us know if you've ever done this or if you would like to do it.
What is your idea for a themed retreat?
We want to know. Thank you to our executive producer, Chuck Reed, and everyone at Lemonada.
remember you can subscribe to Lemonada Premium you can listen completely ad free just tap the subscribe button on Apple Podcasts or head to LemonadaPremium .com to subscribe on any other app that is LemonadaPremium .com and here's your reminder usually we remind you to tell a friend which we really appreciate but we also really appreciate reviews we would love it if you would leave a review if you love the show leave a review to let us know.
Until next week, I'm Elizabeth Craft. And I'm Gretchen Rubin.
Thanks for joining us Onward and Upwards.
Elizabeth, I love the setup in your guest room.
I think that if you ever need another background for one of your Zoom calls, you should try this.
It's great. Yes, I have been doing my pitches in the dining room, which is the worst possible place in terms of human and dog traffic.
Running around. Yes, so the guest room would be much better.
I'm going to be this week.
I'm going to use the guest room.
Well, thank you for letting me use it today.
From the Onward Project.
project. Hi, Gretchen, Craig Robinson, and my little sister Michelle here.
We host a new podcast called IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson.
We know you're the queen of giving advice, so we wanted to get a few tips from you.
You know, Gretchen, a lot of our listeners are going through some major life changes.
What advice do you have for folks who are trying to stay grounded in the midst of major life transitions.
Craig and Michelle, I am so happy to be talking to you.
Here are a few questions that might help us gain perspective.
So consider questions like this.
What activities take up my time but are not particularly useful or stimulating for me?
Do I spend a lot of time on something that's important to someone else but is not very important to me?
If I could magically change one habit in my life, what would I choose?
And here's a question.
Would I like to have more time in solitude, restorative solitude, or would I like to have more time with friends?
You know, just thinking about questions like this can help us start to figure out how we might make our lives happier.
with greater self -knowledge, we're better able to make hard decisions that reflect ourselves, our own nature, our own interests, our own values.
In my own case, I have found that the more my life reflects my nature, the happier I get and the more grounded I feel when I'm going through a period of major change or transition.
For more great advice, search for IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson wherever you get podcasts.
You can listen to Issa Rae on letting go of certain and Friendships, Kiki Palmer on why disappointment is actually the key to career success, Seth and Lauren Rogan on caring for aging parents, and so many more.
