Let me back up to the beginning. How this all got started.

I was in a pretty bad mood from 2016 through 2022. Wonder why? And that meh mood lingered even after some of the dust settled. It was in late-December 2022 that I realized I couldn’t take feeling that miserable anymore. And what I was experiencing was internalized. I didn’t share it with the world. Much. But I knew that something had to change. That I had to change.

So I did what any smart, sane, self-caring woman would do. Call my therapist? LOL. Nah! I Googled “happiness”, and stumbled upon a course to be, of all things, a happiness coach.

My initial reaction was to laugh out loud, thinking, “Oh. My. Gawd. How absurd!” When I was done cackling, my second reaction was, “Oh my gawd. That’s exactly what I want to do.”

So I got that certification, and about a half-dozen others. I took online courses on the Science of Happiness out of UC Berkeley and Yale, because that’s fancy, right? And I was hooked and shook, because what we are taught about happiness is pretty much all wrong.

Now, there are only two C-words I find truly off-putting: Chunk and Coach. Gag. Vomit. Yes, there are a lot of good, truly talented, wonderful, very helpful coaches out there. And then there are the grifty ones. The grifty ones seem to nab the attention. They are the ones our minds pop to. Or, maybe that’s just me. 

Not liking that particular C-word, I went ahead and called myself a Happyist. H-A-P-P-Y-I-S-T. And the fun thing I’ve found since taking on that moniker is how many people out there misspell happiest (as in I-E-S-T) in hashtags. 

Let’s be honest…right now is either the very best time to be peddling happiness or just the effing worst because, yes, I’ve been paying attention. I know what the world looks like. But I’d like to see this as the best time because, come on! Anger and fear got us here. We’ve been fighting fire with fire for a very long time, and where has that gotten us? Exactly. So, let’s look at this another way.

Close your eyes. I mean, if you’re not driving or handling sharp objects. Close your eyes, take in a deep breath and imagine for a solid minute what a world full of truly happy people would look like. Feel like. How it would function. And I mean authentically happy people. No faking it. No toxic positivity. No blissfully ignorant fools. 

Picture your friends and neighbors truly happy. The folks you work with, truly happy. People you pass on the street or in airports, truly happy. Yeah, stick with that one for a moment. Game changer, right?

Here’s the problem, though. We were taught to believe that happiness is something outside of us, something that we need to pursue. It’s written into our effing Declaration of Independence that way. But, here’s the kicker: we have the right to pursue happiness, but actually being happy? LOL! They weren’t going to guarantee that. 

And that’s where we start with getting it wrong.

Did you know there are two types of happiness? Because I sure as hell didn’t. And that explains a lot of our frustration and misbeliefs about happiness. Because they are very different happies. 

I use cake to describe the difference between the two, which are hedonic and eudaimonic. 

Hedonic happiness is what we get from people, places and material things. This happiness is shorter-lived. It’s the high-low version. We get the car, the house, the job, the money, the relationship, the fancy vacays, and we still aren’t truly happy. Right? There’s something missing and we can’t quite put a finger on it. So, we think we need a different car, house, job, more money, another relationship, fancier vacays and, nope, still not truly happy. I mean, we felt it for a little bit, but then *poof* it was gone. Back to square one. And each time this happens, we get a bit pissier about it.

This brand of happiness is frosting. Delicious. But on its own? It makes us feel unwell.

Eudaimonic happiness is the groovy stuff. Best of all? It’s fricken free. It’s what we get from having a strong sense of self, self-love, self-worth, appreciation and purpose. This happiness comes from within and is in endless supply. It sticks, if we pay attention and nurture it, which is pretty effing easy to do. 

This is the cake of the cake, or the sponge, as Paul and Prue would say. And really good sponge doesn’t need frosting. Angel food cake fundamentally resists frosting. A little berry compote and we’re good.

When you picture a layer cake, like on the Betty Crocker box, you see the ratio of sponge to frosting…and Betty is pretty generous with her frosting. Still, there’s much more cake to the cake. That’s the balance we’re going for. 

Hedonic happiness is there to enhance, not overwhelm. It’s not the most important part. But, we are taught that it is.

Here’s another thing that happiness isn’t: It’s not that “good vibes only” BS. That is toxic positivity, and that garbage is actually self-harm. Suppressing emotions is bad for you. Pretending everything is fine when it’s not is bad for you. Really. Wonder why your super happy pal has headaches and stomach issues, or is always under the weather? I’m just guessing here.

Authentic happiness makes room for all feelings to be felt. As a matter of fact, feeling all your feels is a requirement to be authentically happy. The way I look at emotions is that they are messengers and teachers. They should be listened to. And once you get the message or lesson, let it go.

The other thing is this is a holistic practice, in that ALL aspects of your life should be bringing you happiness. Yep, all of them. Even that one. It’s a process; you’ll see how it comes together. When it does, don’t expect to be giddy.

Happiness isn’t giddy. Happiness is pretty chill, in fact. It’s contentment, satisfaction and calm. It is appreciation for who you are and what you have now while you are striving for bigger, better and more. It is strength in that you become more confident and self-assured. You have clarity, and you become resilient AF.

AND, best part? You don’t have to become someone else to be happy. You don’t have to give up aspects of yourself that you actually like. You simply become the very true you when you are eudaimonically happy. 

I’m holding back a little here, because we only just met, but I still swear…a LOT. I still flip off stoopid drivers and I do it with a smile. Because, sadly, being happy doesn’t cure other people from being idiots.

Yet, being happy does have a ripple effect. It will be a disruptor in your life and, dare I say, the world. Certain relationships will fall away while others will deepen. Things you thought were important or what you wanted may no longer be. And all of this is good news! It’s personal evolution, baby. And you being happy gives others permission to be happy, too.

Look, I’m woo but I’m not woo-woo. What do I mean by that? Well, I’m a native of Los Angeles who knows her sun, moon and rising signs, and, on occasion, aligns her chakras. At the same time, I effing love science. So what I share here isn’t a bunch of hot takes. There’s science involved. I’ll let you know when it’s more science-adjacent.

Okay, this is a little science-adjacent.

You understand wi-fi, right? Enough to use it anyway. It’s a bunch of invisible waves of energy or frequencies that help us communicate, yes? Close enough? Good. So, if we understand wi-fi, we should understand the power of our own vibe. Because we do have one. We have a frequency, an energy. And when we change ours, when we level it up, things change. For the better.

What we need right now is to level-up our collective vibe. We need to put on our proverbial inflated frog suits and hip-wiggle our way into a better world. And we can! Fighting fire with fire does not work. It’s just more fire. I’m talking about doing our own-work, our inner work, creating eudaimonic happiness to shift this shit. That’s where the true power lies.

Happiness is a super power. What I’ve come to learn on my happiness journey — and, no, I can’t believe I said that either — is that I am so much stronger being happy than I was being angry. I still get pissed off or sad, hurt or disappointed and before I know it, I’m back to happy. That’s now my foundation, my baseline. And it will be yours, too. It’s so easy to create and maintain. And it’s worth it.

How do you start being happy when you’re super fucking not because of everything that’s happening around us? Two words: “Thank you.” Yep. It’s all about appreciation.

There are many studies on gratitude that confirm it’s the building block of happiness. I just happen to loathe that word. It’s been co-opted by the toxic positivity tribe, it sounds like you have to grovel for it, and it makes you do homework. Appreciation, on the other hand, is an increase in value. Same stuff, this just has a better ring to my ears. So, if you’re gratitude-averse, too, opt for appreciation. 

Having appreciation for all that you have, right now, and who you are, right now, is the start. However, if that’s something you can’t manage at the moment, go for the littles. If you know me, you can sing along to mine: Hawks, hummingbirds, butterflies, green lights, good parking, blue skies, good fries, something I need being on sale and the shower water being *that* temperature. You know the one. All of that warms the cockles of my cynical little heart, and I literally — and usually audibly — say “Thank you” to them. Yes, it is a little dorky, but the more you get to know me, you’ll see that I am a full-on goober a lot of the time…when I’m not swearing or flipping people off.

That’s where we start. With appreciation. Because, if we go back to our vision of what the world would look like with more truly happy people in it, I think it’s a pretty small thing to do in order to get the ball rolling. Because if I’m happy, and you’re happy, and the rest of the folks listening get happy, that’s going to shake some trees, yes?

This is what I mean by starting a happiness rebellion. Happiness isn’t passive. It’s punk AF. Happy people don’t start wars. Happy people don’t take away rights. Happy people know it’s not pie, and that someone getting a slice doesn’t mean you don’t get a slice, too. Think about what a bunch of happy people could accomplish. Not too shabby.

This isn’t BS. This is the opportunity. Change your life, change the world. And, even if I’m wrong (which I’m not), the worst thing that happens is more people get a little happier. Imagine that.