How to Create the Life You Want: Lessons From the #1 Happiness Researcher

Mel Robbins (00:00:48):

Hey, it's your friend, Mel. I am so happy that you're here because I love the topic and I love who we're going to get spend time with together. And you know who else I love spending time with Together you, it's always an honor to be able to spend this time and learn with you and laugh with you. And if you're brand new, I just want to welcome you to the Mel Robbins podcast family. You have picked one heck of a winner of a conversation to listen to because what's more important than your happiness, not a whole lot else, and the fact that you hit play, you know what that tells me about you? It tells me that you're interested in learning more about ways that you can improve your life and be happier, and you also love research. I love that because I love that too.

(00:01:27):

And today I'm bringing you a conversation that's not just inspiring. It's transformational. Today in our Boston Studios, you are going to get to meet and spend time with the incredible Dr. Judith Joseph. Now, Dr. Judith is a double board certified psychiatrist. She earned her medical degree and MBA and completed her residency at Columbia University where she now serves as the chairwoman of the Women in Medicine Board. And she also went to do her fellowship at NYU where she's been a professor for over a decade. Her cutting edge research has earned her national recognition, including a US Congress and House of Representatives Proclamation Award for her advocacy in mental health and her innovative research. She's also at the cutting edge of medical research. She's the founder and principal investigator at Manhattan Behavioral Medicine where she and her team have conducted over 60 clinical research trials, including leading the trial for the first ever FDA approved drug for postpartum depression.

(00:02:29):

Isn't that amazing? Well, that's just the beginning. Dr. Judas mission aligns perfectly with the mission of the Mel Robbins Podcast, which is to make life-changing information accessible to everyone in your life. In my life. That's what we're doing here. And why I'm so excited is because through her latest brand new Happy Lab research, she's been working to uncover what she says are the five things based on research that are going to make you thrive. And today she is revealing them to you. So let's dive in. Please help me welcome the extraordinary Dr. Judith Joseph to the Mel Robbins Podcast.

Dr. Judith Joseph (00:03:05):

Mel, I'm so happy to be here.

Mel Robbins (00:03:07):

Well, I can't wait to jump into the topic and to all of your brand new research. And I want to start by asking you, could you just speak directly to the person that's here with us right now and listening and share with them what is it that they might experience differently in their life if they really take to heart everything that you're about to teach us today and they apply it in their life,

Dr. Judith Joseph (00:03:31):

If you are listening right now and you are feeling a bit empty or restless or just feeling lost, you should thank yourself right now because you are giving yourself the gift of knowledge. You are being curious about how you can potentially be happier and how you could potentially impact the people in your lives. So I want you to thank yourself because you are giving yourself the gift of making your life better.

Mel Robbins (00:03:57):

I was not expecting you to say that. I think that when you're feeling really overwhelmed or lost or just unhappy, that the last thing that you're doing is thanking yourself. You're beating yourself up. Why is that an important thing to do?

Dr. Judith Joseph (00:04:12):

Many of us are so hard on ourselves. Look, for example, today I'm coming to the Mel Robbins show to see my good friend Mel, and I'm like, why didn't I read this? Why didn't I read that? I had to even stop and say, I should be really giving myself some gratitude here. I'm doing something that's making the world a better place. I'm a working mom, I'm a single mom. I am an entrepreneur. So as a psychiatrist, I have to remind myself of my self-worth that I am doing something good, that I should be grateful for me and grateful for the things that I'm doing.

Mel Robbins (00:04:45):

What's interesting about what you just said is that I think that we all know that we beat ourselves up, but when I look at somebody like you and I look at your resume and I look at the work that you're doing in the world, it wouldn't even occur to me that you have a critical inner voice. And I guess where I want to start, because for the person that isn't familiar with your work, you have an extremely unique lab. You do very important work, and I would love for you to just share with the person that's with us, what you do and why it's so unique and the kinds of things that your lab is researching right now.

Dr. Judith Joseph (00:05:25):

Well, Mel, I've told you this story before personally, but many people don't know this. In 2020, I was sitting at my desk in my office and I was given this talk to this major hospital system to people who didn't know what was happening in the world, who were faced with uncertainty and were afraid, and they were looking to me for help. And a midway through that talk, I was just like, oh my gosh, I think I'm depressed. And I was like, how did depression sneak up on me? And it led me to wonder how many people out there are wearing this mask of productivity. They're really struggling underneath and no one knows it, but they're coping with it by busying themselves, by showing up for others, by being a good mom, by being a good friend, a good sister, a caretaker. And I started to ask this question in my practice, and many people were saying, that is me. That is me. But they weren't fitting neatly into this box because they were still going. They were still pushing through, they were still functioning. That led me to really understand the human experience in a different way. How is it that people are showing up but they're feeling empty? What is that? And that led me to understand high functioning depression, that feeling of being numb, being meh, feeling blah, feeling as if things don't excite you anymore. And I want people to know that this is a human experience. It's happening to you. You can understand it better and you could do something about it.

Mel Robbins (00:06:46):

You have a very unique take though on everything that you do because you're not only in clinical practice and you're not only a professor, but you're running this world renowned research lab. Before we jump into some of the things that you've been researching about high functioning depression, and more importantly, the new research coming out of the Happiness Lab, can you just share with the person that's listening what your lab does and some of the things that you're focused on that are very unique and how that informs the way you think about

Dr. Judith Joseph (00:07:21):

Happiness? Yes. My lab is focused on mental health issues anywhere from A DHD to dementia, and as a principal investigator leading teams that study phase two to phase four clinical research. We're constantly trying to work with companies to develop new medications, new therapies, to address things like A DHD, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, depression. 

Mel Robbins (00:07:54):

Okay, hold on. What is the bio social psycho, what did you say?

Dr. Judith Joseph (00:07:59):

Biopsychosocial model.

Mel Robbins (00:08:01):

Okay. What does that mean in a normal person speak?

Dr. Judith Joseph (00:08:05):

Well, in medical school, we all learn that certain illnesses or conditions have different components. If it were simple, let's say for example as depression, if it was simple as taking a pill, none of us would ever be depressed. We just put the meds in the water and everybody would be happy. Go lucky, right? But we know that it's not that simple because biologically, there are risk factors for depression. There are risk factors based on your genetics, your past family history and certain medical conditions. And then we know psychologically there are factors based on your past trauma, your attachment style, the way that you're resilient or not, the way you cope, adaptively or not. And then the social part, which is your environment. So what are your relationships? What is your job? What is your school? What are you eating? How much are you moving? Are you exposed to toxins? So it's very complicated because there are all these factors that lead to your happiness or detract from your happiness, and I wanted to democratize that because why should only medical students have access to this? Everyone should know what their bio psychosocial is because then we have different avenues to obtaining and attaining sustainable happiness.

Mel Robbins (00:09:17):

I think I understand why you're so excited about this new research. What are you researching exactly in the Happiness Lab?

Dr. Judith Joseph (00:09:26):

Well, everyone has a different idea about happiness.

Mel Robbins (00:09:28):

What is your definition of happiness?

Dr. Judith Joseph (00:09:30):

For me? Yeah, feeling connected. When I was, and it goes back to my childhood, my dad was a pastor, and we would go out into the community and help people and feeling connected to people feeling that I'm creating purpose in this world that makes me happy. And connectedness can be with my family. It could be with my friends and my lab, but that makes me extremely happy. I mean, I'm one of four siblings, so I'm always around people and that energy feeds me. It makes me thrive. The moments in my life, in my past when I've been unhappy, I've been incredibly lonely and I need to feel that connection.

Mel Robbins (00:10:12):

Is everybody's definition different?

Dr. Judith Joseph (00:10:14):

I think so. I think some people are okay with having some loneliness here or there. I call it loneliness. But for them it's me time, right? For others, they need that time away from others to explore, to create, and that's okay. We all have our own idea of what makes us feel happier. Every time you think of the word happy, just imagine, write down what you imagine happy is in your mind.

Mel Robbins (00:10:40):

I immediately thought of my dog. I don't know if my family's going to be mad at me, but for some reason I thought about my dog. Well, I have two dogs, so I should probably say both dogs. And the fact that it's not, I'm happy when I see them, I am. But if I had to think of an image around what is happy, it's the fact that when you open the door, your pet is so excited to see you, their whole body is shaking. They are nothing but love toward you. They seem to constantly be emoting something that feels positive. Am I in the right line here?

Dr. Judith Joseph (00:11:15):

Well, Mel, you're healed. You've done the work. But many people, when they think of happiness, when they're being real with themselves, they're thinking about, I have this house, I have this car, I have this partner, I have this perfect job. I feel complete. The problem with that is that once you get those things, the science shows that you're still not happy. You're still looking for more things. And I, I've experienced that. I had the fancy degrees, got the marriage, got the kid, had the house, had the business, and I still felt empty. I was still looking for more. And that's an experience that a lot of people to me with, they say, well, I don't know why I'm still not happy. But I wanted people to understand why they feel this way. What is the science of your happiness? And there's this whole curriculum throughout America and many schools where adolescents are learning about the science of happiness. College students are learning about it, but a lot of adults don't know about it. And I wanted to basically bring you back to school to understand the science of your happiness. So in my lab, I take people through their own unique bio-psychosocial and help them to understand their biology, understand their psychology and their social factors so that we can work from these three different angles to really cultivate joy.

Mel Robbins (00:12:35):

Well, what I think is so cool is that when I think about what you do for a living, on one hand you're teaching on another hand, you're in clinical practice sitting in front of people. And another unique thing about your practices, you have people of all ages in your practice. So your practice is little kids all the way up to grandparents. And so you're seeing the full range of the human experience. And then you're running an all female clinical research lab that is investigating and running clinical trials for pharmaceutical prescription drugs that will help people with mental health issues. And so you have this lens that where you've seen interventions with prescription drugs, you see interventions with talk therapy, you are teaching this at New York University, and now you've decided to start this happiness lab to try to help people find their blueprint for happiness. So how did you set up the research for the Happiness Lab given that you have these three very different parts of your professional life where you're seeing patients?

Dr. Judith Joseph (00:13:50):

I set up the Happiness Lab based on all the different hats that I wear. For example, with the doctors at NYU, I'm teaching them how to use media and social media to communicate effectively to the public. So taking really complex mental health things and delivering them in easily relatable ways. In the lab, I'm doing research with drugs and different methods trying to address certain symptoms. And in the Happiness Lab, I'm really pulling from all of these different parts, these different hats that I wear, and making it accessible so that people have a path to really understanding the science of their own happiness and how to obtain sustainable joy. That's how I came up with the five E's to thriving. I wanted to be able to tailor this to the individual, but have a methodology that anyone could follow. And the five Vs are very simple. The first is validating. Many times we don't acknowledge how we feel. The second is venting, learning how to express how we feel, the is our values, things that really give our lives a sense of purpose and meaning. The fourth vitals, we only have one body, we have to learn how to take care of it. And the fifth is vision. How do we keep moving forward so that we're not stuck in the past?

Mel Robbins (00:15:05):

So Dr. Judith, you've spent almost your entire career treating and helping patients who are struggling with depression and anxiety and who are just feeling off or on autopilot or they have complex trauma and that's the work that you've been doing as a psychiatrist. And then you have this research institute that is also researching and doing clinical trials for all kinds of pharmaceutical interventions that are trying to get approved by the FDA to help people with mental health challenges. 

Dr. Judith Joseph (00:16:01):

So many times we're so focused on the science and advances that we've forgotten the basics, and we all have the DNA, we have the makeup to find happiness. We're just genetically built to have joy. That's why we have dopamine in our brains. But we've forgotten along the way the basics. And I wanted people to know that there were five pathways to happiness that everyone has access to. We all do different things within these five Vs that I created, but we all have access to them. And if we knew them, then we could all find the science of our own happiness and follow these five pathways. And

Mel Robbins (00:16:41):

Are these five pathways that you're about to teach us these five Vs that have come out of your research in this happiness lab project, are these related to the same things that keep you unhappy or make you be in a position in your life where you feel lost or overwhelmed? What's the connection between what you see when somebody's really struggling versus what you see when somebody's happy?

Dr. Judith Joseph (00:17:07):

All of these five vs have a negative and a positive aspect of them. If we're not doing them right, we will be unhappy. If we're doing them in a positive way that edifies us, we will be happier.

Mel Robbins (00:17:20):

Let me just see that I understand what you just said. So as a psychiatrist and a researcher, you see these same five things when somebody's struggling, it's just that they're not actually focused on them and that means that if you flip it, these same five things become your pathway to becoming happier regardless of where you are in your life and what you're dealing with. Absolutely. That is so cool. Well, one of the Vs I heard you say was venting. Yes. No wonder I'm happy I do a lot of venting. Now I actually want to unpack all this because you keep those saying tailor it to the individual. What does that mean? Because I thought that the blueprint is the same for all of us. It's not.

Dr. Judith Joseph (00:18:05):

We all have a bio-psychosocial, but many of us, let's say people who have autoimmune conditions, we may have to focus more on the biological part because if we have a condition that's really creating a lot of stress on our bodies and brains, then it may not make sense to focus on the social part. It doesn't matter how much kale you eat, you're still going to have that autoimmune condition. So you may have to work with specialists, work on decreasing the amount of inflammation in your body from that biological perspective and then work on the psychological and social later. For others of us, we may have more of the social aspect that's creating stress in our system. So it could be a bad relationship with a toxic individual who's literally sucking our life force. So again, you may want to focus there because it doesn't matter how much sleep you're getting, you need to be able to get this person out of your life so that you can seek clearer and make better decisions. And for others, we have more psychological components that are creating stress. Let's say if you have a history of trauma and you are avoiding things, you're avoiding living because you're afraid of being triggered. I may want to work more with that individual on how to address their trauma response so they can cope better. So yes, the five Vs seems like one method, but we all want to utilize it differently because we're all unique and different and we all have different bio-psychosocial components.

Mel Robbins (00:19:25):

And the five Vs that you're about to share with us help you customize what you need to work on now.

Dr. Judith Joseph (00:19:30):

Yes,

Mel Robbins (00:19:30):

That is so cool. Okay, this is personalized medicine basically straight from you. 

Dr. Judith Joseph (00:19:42):

You have? The first V is validation. We often are so busy we neglect how we feel. We sometimes I'm guilty of it too. I'll be sitting, I'll be working and I have to go to the bathroom and I don't even go to the bathroom. I'm invalidating how I feel. And I recently gave a talk to a group of high powered women and I asked them, how many of you have worked through going to the bathroom through eating? And they raise their hands because we don't acknowledge how we feel. If you don't acknowledge how you feel, you can't do anything about it. How on earth is validating how I feel? Make me happier. Knowing how you feel in itself is a therapeutic act. Many times we don't understand our emotions. We kind of feel like blah numb or we're just going through it. But the science shows us that if we can acknowledge how we feel, that in itself decreases the amount of uncertainty. As human beings, we need to know things, feeling that we know what's happening actually decreases uncertainty and decreases stress and we feel better. So

Mel Robbins (00:20:44):

How do you start this? Because I think for a lot of us, if I think back to today, I'm doing okay this particular day tomorrow, who knows what's going to happen when I wake up. But when I think back to moments in my life where I've been profoundly unhappy, I was way too busy, I was drinking too much. I was gaslighting myself saying, I'll just get through it, I'll just get through it. But if you're in the middle of that or you're profoundly depressed, you're so wired to just keep going or to avoid it. How do you even validate your feelings if you've basically been numbing them for a long time?

Dr. Judith Joseph (00:21:26):

So many times we avoid how we feel because this is a trauma response. If bad things happen to us and they're emotionally triggering, we don't want to think about it. So it's natural to not want to say, I feel this way because we're afraid that if we acknowledge it, something bad will happen and we get triggered and we may go into fight or flight because we're acknowledging this negative emotion. But it's important to do this because if we are not acknowledging how we're feeling, we're not able to break patterns that may actually be very unhealthy for us. I once had a client who had a hard time validating how she felt because she was so busy focused on everyone else around her. She was busying herself, worried about how everyone else felt and validating them that she was invalidating herself. And in our work together we realized that she was the serial people pleaser.

(00:22:17):

But in that work, having her slow down, having her not look outwards but look inwards and understand that, okay, I'm doing this because I have low self-worth because in my past I was neglected that this is the only way that I can show up because this is the only way I think I'm able to obtain love. That allowed her to acknowledge that emptiness that she felt, that feeling of low worth that she felt, and it wasn't a positive feeling, it was a negative feeling. It was painful for her, but acknowledging it and validating it allowed us to do the work to move forward in a different direction so that her relationships are more balanced and they're healthier.

Mel Robbins (00:22:55):

A lot of times when you are a people pleaser and you are somebody that cannot say no and you struggle with guilt and then you're exhausted and you're always last on the list, there's this real kind of weakness that masochism is a strong word. And so when you start to call yourself, I'm being a masochist, which basically means you're destroying yourself. If I'm tracking with you here, you had the benefit of going to therapy. The majority of people do not. Do you as a psychiatrist running a clinical practice have a tricky question, like a sneaky one first. No, I'm serious. The act of learning how to validate how you feel, it's very difficult for a lot of people. I remember this funny thing that my mother said once we were talking about therapy and she just kind of quip, well, why would I want to go to therapy so I can find out I hate my life and I don't like your father. I don't want to look at myself. And we had a good laugh and she was kind of kidding. But is there a way, and I really mean this, for somebody that's never stopped to think about how they're actually feeling because they've been in survival mode or they've had an experience in life where they've just felt kind of invisible, where you could give the person listening a cue or a journal prompt so that they could truly do step one.

Dr. Judith Joseph (00:24:23):

Absolutely. And you're going to say it's simple, but the first step is ask yourself, how do I feel? I know it sounds so cheesy, but how do I really feel that's like the internal validation. People are neurodivergent. Some people can't do that introspection. So what I do with some of my clients is I say, well, because you're a visual learner, sometimes it's helpful for you, may not be helpful for someone else to look in the mirror and look yourself in the eye and say, how am I feeling today? And be honest with yourself. Other people, again, people learn differently. They're more tactile, so they use their hands, they're more manual. So I'll ask them to write, how do I feel?

(00:25:04):

In some cases where people have something called alexathymia, which is a condition where you have a really hard time pinpointing your emotions, I'll actually have a face chart of different emotions and different words and I'll ask them to circle how do I feel? It sounds very basic, but there are people who can't. They just either culturally were not taught to validate themselves or in their family, it just wasn't the norm. Or again, they have alexithymia, they just don't know how to identify feelings. So depending on the person, I have artists sometimes who come to my office and I'll say, when you're playing a song, maybe play a song that expresses how you feel. So that's how you can self validate. You can verbally acknowledge it or you can write it down, but it's important to do it.

Mel Robbins (00:25:47):

I think I understand why. Lemme give this back to you. You can't be sober until you stop drinking. And if you want to be happy, you're not going to be able to access it. If you are going through life denying the fact that you feel overwhelmed or sad or lonely, like stopping to acknowledge where you're at opens the door for you to walk through it into a different room.

Mel Robbins (00:26:20):

So what is the second V?

Dr. Judith Joseph (00:26:23):

The second V is venting. I love

Mel Robbins (00:26:25):

This one. Okay,

Dr. Judith Joseph (00:26:26):

If you think about venting, so from the scientific term it's like air is in a bubble and then you let it out and the pressure's released. We need to let out our pressure, we need to let off steam literally. So venting is getting that when to validate how you feel, how do you get out there? For some people, I mean my dad's a pastor, they pray in the church, a lot of people pray and they'll talk to God and they express to God how they're feeling, but they don't feel comfortable telling their partner. They don't feel comfortable telling anyone else. For others it's talking to a therapist. For others, it could be to a faith leader. And I mentioned I treat artists. So sometimes some of my artists will come in and they'll sing a song to me or they'll show me something that they drew. I personally vent by using social media because if I'm feeling a certain way, I'll create a reel or a post to express it. And a lot of my younger clients who are in Gen Z, I think now 50% of Gen Z wants to have a side hustle as being an influencer. So they're expressing their feelings that way, venting in that creative outlet.

Mel Robbins (00:27:32):

So let me just make sure I get venting because when you said the second V from the research that you've been doing on what you need to be doing in order to become happier based on the research, when you said venting, I'm like, great. So my rage texts to my husband are going to make me happier. But that's not what you mean. No. Okay.

Dr. Judith Joseph (00:27:54):

Well there are do's and don'ts of venting, right?

Mel Robbins (00:27:56):

Okay, so give us the dos because if you validate how you feel, which opens the door to having you be able to feel something different, then you have to vent. But what am I venting? Am I venting bad things? Am I venting good

Dr. Judith Joseph (00:28:12):

Things? You can vent bad or good venting is getting the emotion out. Once you acknowledge it,

(00:28:18):

Validating can be acknowledging both perceived good and bad emotions, negative or positive. I don't like the word good, bad, but any emotion that you acknowledge, you can then vent it. Now what you described when you are full of rage or your emotional, that could be perceived as trauma dumping, right? You mean Thursday night? And with my clients, I do go through the do's and the don'ts like don't vent when you're in the heat of the moment, maybe take a beat, slow down a bit and think about it. And then don't trauma dump. Especially if you're venting to someone who's maybe someone who's an employee, that power dynamic is not fair because they're going to listen. They're not going to be shut up. You complain all the time. They're going to be like, yeah, boss. And then they're going to go home and then they're going to vent to someone else.

(00:29:08):

So you want to be mindful of making sure that you're not trauma dumping and making sure that you are reflecting and not then creating stress for someone else. But really I ask people to do a lot of self venting first. So say it out loud if you have to express it in a song, if you have to, but it is helpful to talk to people and you want to think about, okay, the person that I'm going to repeatedly, is it fair? Is that person okay with it? So you can even ask them like, Hey, is it okay if I check in with you? I have this problem, I know that I come to you often. If it ever feels like I'm doing this too much or you feel overwhelmed and it's not reciprocal, let me know. So there are ways to go about it, which I provide. So is part of

Mel Robbins (00:29:52):

The five vs, and I'm sorry, I've got my little brain spinning here. Are part of these five vs helping you also release the things that are keeping you unhappy?

Dr. Judith Joseph (00:30:04):

Yes.

Mel Robbins (00:30:05):

Got it. Okay. So now I'm getting this. So a lot of people that do happiness research, they start with do these things and then that creates more happiness. As a clinical researcher, you're saying there are actually things that are in your way from even accessing the advice that a lot of people are giving that if you're, let's just take the first one, not even present to your feelings and you haven't validated them, you're not going to take the walk if you're not venting, which now it sounds like venting is literally releasing the emotion that has you trapped, whether it's positive or negative and saying, oh, I'm sad, or talking to somebody or doing art. You're going to stay stuck in that emotion because it's trapped in you. And so it's almost like these are hidden obstacles that are keeping you from accessing the happiness that's available to you.

Dr. Judith Joseph (00:30:59):

Absolutely.

Mel Robbins (00:31:00):

Oh, I just got this. Okay.

Dr. Judith Joseph (00:31:02):

I love the way that you really break things down because you're absolutely right. People automatically think I got to do these things, but they're not doing the first parts, which is again, this is the democratizing of the mental health that I'm talking about. The first parts. That's usually what happens in a therapeutic setting. We started the basics and then we work our way up to the action.

Mel Robbins (00:31:22):

Gotcha.

Dr. Judith Joseph (00:31:23):

But when you're skipping that part

Mel Robbins (00:31:25):

And

Dr. Judith Joseph (00:31:25):

You're doing the action, you don't even know why you're doing it.

Mel Robbins (00:31:28):

It's don don't understand

Dr. Judith Joseph (00:31:29):

It. Correct.

Mel Robbins (00:31:30):

Dr. Joseph, I think I've finally understand what you're trying to teach us, which is there are all these pieces of advice that do work that allow you to be happier. But what you're actually doing is going a layer deeper based on the research and revealing the things that keep you stuck from even accessing the happiness. If you do, you take a walk or you reach out to other people. If you're still blocked emotionally, if you haven't released the emotion, then happiness is going to be fleeting. It's like a bandaid on a giant wound. And so are these five vs. The things that are almost like the hidden obstacles to you being able to access happiness.

Dr. Judith Joseph (00:32:15):

They are, if you think about it as you're going from deeper level to surface level, it's a journey. And I think that what you're describing so beautifully is that people, they want to get the skills in the toolbox, but they don't understand the why. They don't understand what they're searching for. So they're just using these tools, but they don't have a target. They don't understand what was behind it. And the beginning parts are so important. And that's what I'm talking about with democratizing mental health is that when you sit with someone who's a therapist and you do the work and you're learning how you feel and how to express it so that you can continue growing in that work, then you can start using the tools. But a lot of us who've never really worked with anyone or didn't have success in therapy, we're just using the tools. But it's like no one taught us how to use the tools, so we're lost.

Mel Robbins (00:33:06):

Well, what's also really important about this is that if you have somebody in your life who's not happy, and I can think of just, gosh, it was probably I'd say seven years ago, my husband was really struggling. It was after his business had failed and he absolutely had depression. He was doing all the things, he was meditating, he was exercising, he was engaging in meaningful work and volunteering as a hospice volunteer, he could not access happiness. And it's exactly what you're talking about. All of his feelings were bottled up inside. And in his case, it was the shame that he felt about having lost all this money in the business and feeling like he had failed to provide as a parent and as a husband and as a father. And it wasn't until he did what you're talking about, which is validate how he was feeling and then vent it by starting to actually talk about it and write about it in his journal and then talk about it with me and talk about it with somebody else.

(00:34:18):

And when I think about our son Oakley, when Oakley was really struggling in school and felt incredibly lonely, he just shut down. And it didn't matter how many Lego sets he built or how much time we spent skiing, which he loved to do, he still would go back to that baseline of unhappiness. And so I think this is also important because when you have somebody that's struggling in your life, you tend to kind of throw the things they should be doing at them. And this is the deeper stuff that has them blocked. 

Dr. Judith Joseph (00:34:54):

The third is values.

(00:34:56):

And for myself, I talked about how I used to value education and accolades and all these things, but at the end of the day, I had to do a deep dive and think about, well, when I felt full fed and really purposeful, these were the times when I was helping others. And even if I was in this prestigious program in this prestigious field, at the time, I didn't feel fulfilled. I didn't feel fed, but what I valued was connecting with people and helping them. So I had to go back to the basics as to what I truly value, not what people tell me that I should value, not what my family told me I should value, but what I truly valued. And for some it could be your faith. For some it could be your family. For others, it's a cause that you feel passionate about.

(00:35:43):

There are deeper level values and more shallow ones. Many of us, we chase money, we chase materialistic things. And I think that those are more shallow because they don't last. When you're in your death bed, you're not going to think, oh, I wish I had that pink Porsche. Right? The only people that remember how much you worked are your kids. You're going to think about the people in your life. You're going to think about whether or not you created change. You're going to think about the legacy that you left. So I think that really being, having that self-reflection and thinking about what you truly value, what brings you purpose and meaning, what makes your life rich, what makes you feel full and fed? Not the things that are just around you, the objects, but things that really give you that sense of purpose as a psychiatrist

Mel Robbins (00:36:27):

In clinical practice. Is there a question? Is there some little trick that we can use? Because I do think that word value, it feels awfully big.

Dr. Judith Joseph (00:36:38):

It does.

Mel Robbins (00:36:38):

And when you're not happy, you're not sure what you value. And especially if you're listening, not even for yourself, but you're thinking about somebody that you care about who isn't happy right now. Is there a question? Is there an exercise? Do you look in the past and see when you were happy? How can you figure this out for yourself?

Dr. Judith Joseph (00:36:59):

When I have a client in my practice sometimes, and I recently had someone come to me and say, I just don't remember what I valued anymore. So we had to look at the past and I asked her, when was the last time that you can really remember that you felt full and fed? I use these very

Mel Robbins (00:37:15):

Mean a table dining room

Dr. Judith Joseph (00:37:17):

Table, other other than that, just like spiritually full

(00:37:20):

Satisfied. And we went back to her childhood, and around that time her parents were going through a divorce, but right before that, she remembered that they would spend a lot of time in nature that they would do camping trips and things like that. And so we had to look back in her past. It took us time, but we found that point in time, we found the trauma and we uncovered what was blocking her. And she hadn't been spending a lot of time in nature. She was living in a big city. She was busying herself with her important job. So I asked her, okay, you value nature. Let's start to spend some time there. I didn't ask her to go on a hiking trip. I asked her to slowly take steps. So the first step was reading about a hike online. The next step was maybe looking at pictures of it, maybe going out and picking out some boots. So we did baby steps to get there, and eventually she started spending more time in nature and feeling a bit happier. Not to say that her depression was completely cured, but her points of joy were increasing. And that gave her hope because she felt so lost. But knowing that these little things, simple things could bring her back to feeling purposeful, even for just moments that gave her hope.

Mel Robbins (00:38:32):

I have a friend that I saw recently who just was glowing and I said to her, what is going on? You look amazing. And she said, well, you know what? I started taking ballet classes as an adult, and it was something I did as a kid, and I've been feeling this sense that something's missing. My kids are now busy as they're getting older, and I'm not quite sure what fills me up. So I just started taking ballet because I used to love it and she just looked alive. And I offer that up because I think it's a easy way to think about what is something that you haven't done in a long time that you used to enjoy doing hiking, taking a class, artistic expression that just that little thing you're saying based on the research can open up doors to greater happiness for you.

Dr. Judith Joseph (00:39:22):

It can. And sometimes I have clients who can't remember their childhood because maybe there was so much disruption, maybe there was so much trauma, and they have a foggy memory. So I have other creative ways to help them with their values. Think of someone that maybe if you could pick one person that you could sit down and have a coffee with or a drink with, who would it be? Sometimes they'll be like, oh, I wish if Prince were alive, I could sit down with Prince. But it's like, okay, so what is it about Prince? And then we go back to they value, they value music and they used to listen to music. They used to go to live shows. So there are different creative ways that you can get to finding out what you value. And for some of my clients, I have to be very concrete and list the values out and then go through them. But you can find things that you truly bring your life meaning that truly gives you a sense of purpose, even if you feel like, okay, I don't have time for that, or I forgot it. I can see

Mel Robbins (00:40:13):

Now why this is individual,

(00:40:16):

These five vs. That you're talking about. Remove the blocks to happiness. But they also help you locate the little drivers inside you that you either got too busy or too depressed or too overwhelmed to be conscientious about inserting into your life. That's really cool. I love knowing that these simple things also are tied to all of this research that is coming from your renowned institute. And that's why I'm so appreciative that you're here. Because sometimes when you hear things that seem like, okay, I think I might know that already, you tend to blow 'em off. But what I love about your work, Dr. Judith, is that it's the research that makes me feel motivated and compelled to really get serious about trying it. And I'm sure as you're listening to Dr. Judith, you're feeling more motivated to try it too. And one of the things that you can do based on the research to boost your happiness is to be connected with people that bring you joy. And so you can spread a little joy by sharing this life-changing information with somebody that you care about. I love learning from you, Dr. Judith, and I'm so grateful that you're here to share all of the extraordinary insights that you've had now that you've started the Happiness Lab.