Sunday Edition Presents: THE PRACTICE OF HAPPY
CONVERSATION FOUR
PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS
Over the past four weeks, The Practice of Happy has explored happiness from several different directions.
What is happiness?
How do we recognize it?
How can happiness exist alongside grief, anger, frustration, fear, disappointment, joy, hope, excitement and everything else that makes up a full emotional life?
How do relationships, expectations, outside influences, internal reactions and the voices in our own heads shape the way we experience a moment?
And perhaps most importantly, what do we actually do with all of that?
In this final conversation, we move from discussion into practice. ❤️🧠🪞🗺️
Anthony Corona is joined by panelists Judy, Mark, Lorna and Gabriel for a practical exploration of the exercises, checklists and internal conversations developed throughout this series.
Special thanks to Holly for taking care of the recording and helping keep everything moving behind the scenes. 🎙️❤️
This conversation is built around one important understanding.
No two people are the same.
These exercises are not rules.
They are not written in stone.
They are not instructions for the right way to feel, think, react or respond.
They are a roadmap.
A set of guidelines.
A collection of tools you can adapt, change, combine, simplify or completely reshape to form your own internal checklist and your own conversations.
The goal is not uniformity.
The goal is awareness.
To create a little more room between reaction and choice.
To better understand what we are feeling.
To recognize what may be influencing us.
To decide what we actually want.
And then to consider what response might move us closer to that outcome.
During this conversation, we explore several practical concepts and exercises.
🪞 THE MIRROR AND THE MAP
We begin by asking one of the largest questions possible.
Who am I?
Using 4, 2, 6 breathing as a reset, we look at the emotional and practical skills that are already working, the areas we may want to strengthen, the things that may be blocking us and the qualities we know to be good and true about ourselves.
Then we create our own internal mirror statement.
A personal mantra.
Something honest.
Something useful.
Something that belongs entirely to us.
🧠 THE INTERNAL CONVERSATION
Sometimes there is more than one voice responding to what is happening.
Anger.
Fear.
Sadness.
Frustration.
Instinct.
Experience.
Hope.
Need.
Expectation.
The goal is not to silence any of them.
Instead, we listen.
We identify the strongest voice.
We ask whether the loudest voice is actually capable of leading.
Then we create an impartial internal leader who can hear the full conversation and help decide what deserves attention, what can wait and what action, if any, should come next.
😊 THE EMOTIONAL TABLE
Inspired by the concept behind Inside Out, we imagine our emotions taking seats around an internal table.
Who grabbed the biggest chair?
Who is dominating the room?
Who keeps interrupting?
Who has been ignored?
Who have we refused to invite?
Each emotion gets a voice.
Each emotion may get a vote.
But no single emotion automatically gets control.
The most important person eventually takes the head of the table.
You.
🦮 INSIDE OUT AND THE GUIDE DOG DENIAL
We bring the emotional table into a real world disability scenario.
A Guide Dog handler waits for an Uber.
The driver arrives.
The driver says no dogs.
The handler explains that this is a trained Guide Dog.
The driver repeats no dogs and pulls away.
Now what?
Anger may show up.
Frustration may arrive.
Fear.
Disappointment.
Embarrassment.
Determination.
Problem solving.
Maybe several at once.
The exercise asks whether Anger can sit beside Reason.
Whether Fear can sit beside Confidence.
Whether Frustration can sit beside Problem Solving.
Whether disappointment can exist alongside the memory of the wonderful evening that came before the denial.
Again, the goal is not to remove emotion.
It is to put emotion into proportion.
📋 THE THREE CHECKLISTS
We also bring together three practical inventories designed to help slow down the progression between feeling, reaction and action.
The Emotional Inventory asks.
What am I feeling?
Why am I feeling it?
What is contributing to it?
What may be inflaming it?
Which feeling is strongest?
Which feeling may actually deserve the most attention?
The Internal Behavior Inventory asks.
What is my immediate reaction?
What happens if I wait five minutes?
Ten minutes?
Overnight?
Am I reacting to what actually happened or to what I think happened?
Does my proposed response support the outcome I actually want?
And what response will I still feel comfortable owning tomorrow?
The Influence and Manipulation Inventory asks us to look at the forces around us and within us.
What outside factors are shaping how I feel?
What story am I telling myself?
What assumptions am I making?
What do I want?
What might someone else want?
Are those motivations compatible?
Can I influence the situation in a more constructive direction?
And ultimately.
What influence do I want to have on what happens next?
💬 THE ACCESSIBILITY POST
The conversation begins and ends with the same scenario.
You post about an accessibility problem.
Most responses are helpful.
Two are sarcastic, passive aggressive or dismissive.
Suddenly those two comments are taking up more emotional space than everything else.
We capture the initial reaction.
Then we work through the exercises and concepts.
At the end, we return to the same situation and ask.
What do I feel now?
What is influencing me?
What do I want?
What would I do?
Did anything change?
Maybe it did.
Maybe it did not.
Neither answer is the goal.
The goal is noticing whether understanding ourselves more clearly changes what happens between reaction and choice.
THE PRACTICE OF HAPPY
The Practice of Happy is not about pretending everything is wonderful.
It is not about suppressing anger, sadness, frustration, disappointment, fear or grief.
It is about becoming more aware of what happens between emotion and action.
Feeling.
Understanding.
Pausing.
Sorting.
Choosing.
Responding.
Sometimes we may write these answers down.
Sometimes we may talk them through with someone we trust.
Sometimes the entire process may happen inside our own heads while walking the dog, sitting in traffic, lying in bed or staring at a text message we probably should not answer quite yet.
The more often we practice the process, the more familiar it becomes.
And perhaps that is where the word practice matters most.
Happy is not necessarily a permanent destination.
Sometimes happy is something we make room for by understanding everything else already in the room.
A SEPARATE PRACTICAL APPENDIX IS COMING
There will also be a separate podcast posting featuring the appendix recording of the exercises, checklists and concepts from this conversation.
That companion recording is designed as a practical facilitation tool.
You can use it to outline your own conversation.
Adapt individual exercises.
Build your own roadmap.
Use selected questions as personal reflection prompts.
Or use the material exactly as presented to facilitate a conversation with a group, organization, classroom, team, support network, family or circle of friends.
The tools belong to you now.
Shape them into something that works for your life.
THANK YOU
Special thanks to Holly for handling the recording. ❤️🎙️
And thank you to our Conversation Four panelists.
Judy.
Mark.
Lorna.
Gabriel.
Most of all, thank you to every person who contributed their thoughts, stories, questions, experiences and perspectives throughout all four weeks of The Practice of Happy.
We are incredibly proud of where these conversations have taken us.
And after four weeks of exploring the ideas, emotions and influences behind happiness, we are finally bringing it all into practical application.
Not a rulebook.
Not a formula.
A roadmap.
A starting point.
And an invitation to form your own Practice of Happy. ❤️🧠🪞🗺️
pisode Notes
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