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In this week's episode we dive into the fascinating research of social psychologist Dan Gilbert, who explores why humans are surprisingly bad at predicting what will make them happy. We cover the joys and challenges of parenting, to how we handle life’s biggest setbacks; divorce, job loss, or the death of a loved one. We unpack the science behind why our emotional forecasts often miss the mark. We also explore how resilient we really are, even when we don’t think we will be, and why being realistic about happiness, rather than chasing an idealized version of it, can lead to deeper contentment. Plus, we reflect on how identifying your core values can serve as a better guide to happiness than chasing external goals, and how humans often fail to learn from their mistakes. Whether you’re navigating a tough life transition or just trying to understand yourself better, this episode offers insights and tools to rethink what it truly means to be happy.
Creators and Guests
Host
What is The Shrink Down?
Four lifelong friends, all clinical psychologists, unpack the latest in current events, pop culture and celebrity news through the lens of psychology.
Vanessa (00:00.898)
Hello, welcome to the shrink down. Today we're going to be talking about an episode that was on the podcast Rethinking that's hosted by Adam Grant. Well, Amina sent it to us. And in this episode, he's chatting with Dan Gilbert, who is a psychology professor at Harvard, and he's the author of stumbling on happiness. And the discussion is really revolving about around the topic of how we as people, humans, we misjudge what will make us happy. He gives us an example of like parenting.
And then it also talks about how we're often wrong about what will make us miserable and gives examples such as divorce, loss. But before we get into today's topic, we're going to do our four minute faves. Anybody want to start today? OK, go ahead, Lauren.
Lauren (00:42.364)
I'll go. Okay, so this is gonna, so in full disclosure, we record on Mondays, this won't air till Friday, but I'm still on a high from watching The Masters last night. And I know because I was texting with Terry that she also was glued to it all day yesterday. So my four minute fave is sort of an ode to some really, really fun golf that we watched this weekend. And it's the Netflix series Full Swing.
Teri (00:56.882)
Hmm
Teri (01:10.737)
that was gonna be mine today.
Wilhelmina (01:11.283)
Lauren (01:13.172)
shut up. So let's share. We'll share. We'll share. Yes. Perfect. Yes. Cause it was just so good yesterday. And I was thinking to myself while watching it, if you watched Full Swing, how much more meaningful some of the storylines are in actually watching the live sporting event. You do not have to be a golf fan. It is such good documentary storytelling. Like the producers,
Teri (01:15.174)
Let's share. We're going the same one.
Vanessa (01:17.041)
That's fine.
Teri (01:20.05)
Yes. Yes.
Teri (01:34.77)
Hmm?
Wilhelmina (01:41.048)
So it's a documentary, it's not fiction, it's not a fictional story. Okay.
Lauren (01:42.672)
It, no, it's real. Yeah. There's three seasons. Yeah. And it's, you do not have to be a golf fan. They do such a great job of giving these people their backgrounds, their life stories. They, they really, it's, it's very golf light really. And it's just so well done. And the storylines like you could, so you don't have to, it follows them through the last three seasons.
Teri (01:44.4)
Yeah, it follows the professional golfers.
Vanessa (01:47.958)
I think I've heard of this.
Wilhelmina (01:47.981)
Okay.
Teri (02:01.202)
Hmm?
Lauren (02:11.572)
But it's really funny because we watch golf every weekend in our house and we were watching the most recent season and going, Oh my God, what happens in this? Who wins this? Like you can't, like it doesn't even really matter that it's not real time because of the way in which they kind of develop each of the storylines, each of the episodes. So yes, that was mine. And obviously Terry's for a minute. Hey Terry, anything else you want to add about it?
Teri (02:35.944)
Yeah, so what prompted it was same exact line of thinking coming off of Roy McRoy's long awaited win for the Masters. It makes him officially a Grand Slam winner, which is very rare. think there's like six golfers who've won all the major tournaments since golf was started as a major sport. And the runner up to him yesterday was a guy named Justin Rose, who's our age, who's 44. He's been a career lifelong golfer. He was
Lauren (02:40.052)
so good!
Yeah. Yeah.
Lauren (02:59.151)
my gosh. Yeah.
Teri (03:03.41)
sort of the villain yesterday in the Masters, because everyone was rooting for Rory to win.
Lauren (03:08.264)
Which is crazy, because he's a likable guy, Justin Rose. Yes, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Teri (03:10.588)
Yes, super nice guy, seems like it at least. And this most recent season of Full Swing follows Justin Rose. So you're able to have a deeper appreciation of who they are as individuals, dads, husbands, just what they sort of go through as they prep for the next golf season. So if you watched the Masters yesterday and want a deeper dive into the quote unquote characters.
Vanessa (03:19.724)
Mm.
Lauren (03:19.731)
Yeah.
Lauren (03:24.04)
Yeah.
Teri (03:37.222)
watching full swing would be really, it's just a really good easy show to watch. Like while you're folding laundry. Yes. Yes.
Lauren (03:37.523)
Yeah.
Totally agree. And it's kid friendly. And I know we're always looking for family friendly options that won't like, you know, numb our brains. And this is one of those. It's actually, right. This is one of them. So yes, full swing. All right, Wilhelmina, that means you're up.
Vanessa (03:42.668)
Okay.
Vanessa (03:48.898)
my god.
Teri (03:50.056)
Right, tiny house, tiny house nation, right.
Wilhelmina (03:50.478)
That's fair. That's fair. Oh yeah.
Vanessa (03:58.338)
Okay.
Teri (03:58.354)
Yeah, yep, highly recommend.
Wilhelmina (04:02.262)
Okay, so this weekend, we had our first, at least first nice day of the spring, I feel like, or first nice weather for consistently. It was sunny, it was in the 60s, which in the summer ends up being feeling cold, but in the spring feels like a heat wave. And so we were sort of stumbling around with what to do on Saturday and
Lauren (04:09.82)
Yeah.
Wilhelmina (04:30.082)
We have this park near us that has a little lake and there's like a playground and place to sit and it's just, it's called Lake Ellen. And we were like, let's go to Lake Ellen and bring our tree hammocks, which is what I am, it's my fave. So I got this actually several years ago. I have always loved hammocks. The first thing I ever bought from babysitting and from helping someone paint was a hammock for my front yard.
Lauren (04:42.899)
Ha ha ha.
Vanessa (04:44.514)
Thank
Wilhelmina (04:58.934)
I have just, I don't know, the swinging of it just feels good. I love to read in it, but we don't have any trees in our house or in our backyard that we can put a hammock. So I had heard of these, these hammocks that you basically attach to trees. have to be a certain distance apart. And then you can just literally like put them up anywhere. So you can go to like local parks and do that. And Lake Ellen actually has several, like lots of different trees that are distanced the right way. Cause actually a lot of the teens around here will also
do that with their hammocks. So at some point you'll see a whole bunch of trees with these hammocks and like a bunch of deans laying in them. But we went there. I have one. And then our sitter this summer got Maddie and Griffin's sum too. So we all brought them and we like hung them up. And then we were just like sitting. were, Maddie and Griffin were playing. I was reading. It was so unusual because I don't think we've ever done that as a family. And it was so fun. And
that I was like, this is gonna be my fave, my hammock. it's, mine is an Eno, which E, Eagles Nest Outfitter, so E-N-O. I think you can get lots of them, but that's like the, I think the first one that came out with these. And then you get this, I think the straps might be separate. So you get the straps, which you, and it makes it very easy to put around the tree. And then there's like carabiners to clip on and.
Lauren (06:02.878)
adorable.
Wilhelmina (06:25.674)
Then it folds up into like a tiny little bag. So it's like the myth. Yes. So it is really fun and our kids love them. Love, love, love them. They hang it. They actually double up on a tree. So like one will be below, one will be the hut and then they play around. So it's really, really fun. Vanessa, what about you?
Lauren (06:28.82)
So travel friendly.
Lauren (06:36.02)
It's fun.
Lauren (06:43.39)
that's cool.
Lauren (06:48.158)
Good.
Vanessa (06:49.654)
All right, I wasn't sure what I was going to share today, but I think I'm just going to stick to what I was going to share. So if anyone is in the market for a new curling iron, I want to share that. So I really like this one. This one is good. if you're pleased with what you have, then disregard. But if you're looking for one in the market, I love the T3. This is called the T3. It has a million settings. You do not.
Lauren (07:01.3)
I'm like I always am. What you got?
Teri (07:01.37)
Mmm.
Wilhelmina (07:02.27)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I know, me too.
Vanessa (07:15.746)
please do not ever put them on high. Like you don't need to fry your hair. But so you can do it low. I don't know why there's 10 setting. Yeah, you're going to have hair gone. And always use a heat protector on your hair. But I really like this because this is the Switch Kit base. So you can change the barrel. if you're somebody, so they have all different. So I found this a while back. I was following somebody. But yeah, so you buy the base and then you can pick which different barrels that you want. So they have different sizes.
Wilhelmina (07:19.862)
My hair is gone.
Lauren (07:21.534)
Yeah.
Wilhelmina (07:29.518)
space.
Lauren (07:31.71)
That is nice.
Wilhelmina (07:32.13)
That's brilliant.
Lauren (07:45.263)
smart.
Vanessa (07:45.312)
They have the wands where it's narrow at the top and then gets wider at the bottom, but they have different sizes. So I got it because I was like, sometimes I like a tighter curl. Sometimes I like a looser curl. So this is my Cher. I really like it. I've had it. This is my second one because I left my first one at a hotel. It was very tragic. It's very tragic. But they have traditional curling irons, too. So if you like the clip, where you clip in the hair, you can get a regular curling iron.
Lauren (08:02.969)
no.
Wilhelmina (08:03.361)
no.
Teri (08:03.534)
Lauren (08:06.804)
Mm-hmm.
Lauren (08:11.518)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa (08:14.24)
or you can do a wand, different sizes. So that's my share. It's the T3. I really like it. It has a really long barrel, which I also like because I have long hair. But if you don't have long hair, it's good to have that. So that's
Lauren (08:22.292)
you've long had.
Wilhelmina (08:26.52)
So that's not a, it's a wand. So it's not a clamp. Okay, they do have the clamps. Okay.
Vanessa (08:30.55)
This is a wand, they do sell the, yeah, you can. So the one that I left at the hotel was actually like a typical curling iron with like the little clamp. Yep. So you can do that. So yeah, so you can have a regular curling iron or you can do a wand. They have like the traditional ones that are like, you the ones that get like narrower, like, so you can do that. They have different sizes. You can get bigger. I think this is the one inch or one and a quarter. So you can go like the bigger barrel. You can go smaller barrel, like all different sizes. So it's nice because especially if you're traveling, you'd bring one base and then you can switch up.
Wilhelmina (08:39.393)
Okay.
Wilhelmina (08:59.416)
Yes.
Vanessa (09:00.61)
Because I'm usually like having to decide like, one thing am I bringing with me? Because I'm not bringing 500 of them. So it's also good for that. And it's pretty lightweight, I would say, in comparison to like other curly irons, especially like, because this is ceramic. I don't remember if you guys remember back in the day, like the hot iron, like the hot, they weren't ceramic. you ever, and it weighed like 600 pounds. It like the hot iron one. And you can see your hair sizzling. Oh yeah, you're gonna see like the sizzle.
Lauren (09:00.956)
Actually, really nice. Which one thing are I going to bring?
Wilhelmina (09:03.042)
Me too.
Lauren (09:19.064)
yeah. yeah.
Wilhelmina (09:19.727)
yeah, huh.
Teri (09:21.905)
Mm-hmm.
Wilhelmina (09:24.236)
and definitely fried your hair. Definitely fried your hair.
Teri (09:28.392)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa (09:28.898)
Yeah, that one. does not do it. This one does not do it.
Wilhelmina (09:30.38)
That is brilliant. mean, I, my mom to this day jokes, she's like, you had so many curling irons, because you'd have all of the different sizes. And because I cut my hair and grow it out, I always would need different sizes depending on my length of my hair. And this would have solved that problem. I could have just said one with, yeah, I love it.
Vanessa (09:39.84)
Yeah, for whatever you are. Yeah.
Lauren (09:48.724)
the
Vanessa (09:48.726)
Yeah, T3. Yes, so I'll share the link. All right, awesome. Well, thanks for sharing, ladies. Let's go ahead and dive into the topic for today. Wilhelmina, since you found the podcast and sent it to us, why don't you give us kind of a synopsis of the discussion, and we'll go from there.
Lauren (09:52.02)
Nice.
Wilhelmina (10:05.708)
Yeah, so I originally saw a clip and it was Adam Grant talking to Dan Gilbert and they were talking about parenting and happiness and kids. So they said, and we know this, the research shows that people are the happiest once their youngest child has left the home. So happiness drops when you have your first child and it only rebounds
after the last child has left the house. And so we do know that having kids by all accounts makes people in the moment less happy.
except when you talk to people having kids, they'll say, did kids, having kids make you happier? And they will usually say, yes. And so Dan Gilbert was saying, they say yes, but the research doesn't match that. And so he was saying, what it does instead is give us meaning and context to our lives, which then does overarching kind of that big aspect makes us happy. But
the act of it or the individual day-to-day does not. And so I sent that to you guys to be like, wow, this is an interesting way to approach this and a way to think about it. And then I ended up listening to the rest of the podcast, which just was talking about happiness as a whole, how we are horrible at predicting kind of our own happiness, what's gonna make us happy, what's gonna make us miserable.
And then a surprising one that I thought was so interesting was that we end up, the little annoyances in life end up causing us the most long-term distress compared to the big ones. Because when you have a big life event, we end up finding support, we find coping, we find other ways to take on this big life event. Whereas those small annoyances, we...
Wilhelmina (12:11.138)
don't do that, and those end up being the ones that stick with us and actually decrease happiness over time, which I thought was interesting. So mostly, we are all parents. And I thought, let's discuss this because we are in the thick of it. And we can talk about our own happiness. We can talk about what we think. We can talk about what we research versus reality. And that was why I brought it up.
Lauren (12:41.972)
Well, it's interesting, right? Because happiness is a feeling. But in the way that you're almost talking about it, it would suggest that it's a state of being, and it's not. It's a feeling. And we constantly are telling the clients that we work with when it comes to those feelings that are most commonly labeled as negative, that we're reminding them feelings don't last.
Wilhelmina (12:44.942)
Mm-hmm.
Teri (12:45.159)
Mm-hmm.
Lauren (13:09.382)
So if you're feeling anxious, remind yourself it's gonna pass and you can sit with the discomfort and it's okay to be uncomfortable. If you're feeling sad, same thing, right? But we don't use that same language for happy and we absolutely should because it's just a feeling. And so if you're chasing happiness as a state of being, you're gonna constantly be disappointed. So it's interesting because parenting or another long-term
Teri (13:09.65)
Hmm.
Wilhelmina (13:21.58)
Yeah, we do not.
Lauren (13:39.182)
venture like a career, right? Those are not short periods of time. So they shouldn't be yet they shouldn't be associated with a feeling state. Right? No, they right they know, but they actually are more a state of being. They're not we should not associate them with feelings and emotions. Yeah.
Wilhelmina (13:46.262)
or a marriage.
Teri (13:47.815)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa (13:48.706)
Mm-hmm.
Wilhelmina (13:51.414)
a state of being that is, yeah, like.
Wilhelmina (13:58.863)
Versus an emotion. Yes, because emotion has a beginning, middle, and end, and comes and goes. Yeah.
Lauren (14:04.508)
Yeah. So maybe we just need to change the language surrounding it. Because it's like, we all kind of get it. It makes sense. It's really logical. But perhaps it's the language people have surrounding it that's the problem.
Vanessa (14:08.694)
What do you think?
Vanessa (14:17.762)
Yeah. Well, I think one of the points he makes is that what children give you is meaning and purpose. so that is what you get out of being a parent and not necessarily joy. So I think people are mislabeling what they get out of their children. So I thought that was interesting. Absolutely.
Lauren (14:23.688)
Yeah. Value. Yeah.
Teri (14:29.916)
Mm-hmm.
Lauren (14:36.542)
But yeah, isn't that so true of society though? They're like obsessed with happiness as like a as like a term
Wilhelmina (14:40.072)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. yes.
Teri (14:45.476)
And if I had, yeah, if I had a dime for every time in my clinical work, I would hear a parent say, I just want my kids to be happy. I just want them to be happy. And having to have that exact conversation you just described, Lauren, that happiness is not a perpetual state of being. It's a transient feeling. It's not something you can hold on to. And it comes back to are you living a values based life?
Vanessa (14:46.06)
But I also think it
Wilhelmina (14:55.534)
100%, yes.
Lauren (14:56.222)
Yeah.
Lauren (15:06.132)
Hmm?
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Teri (15:16.552)
And is it a life worth living versus do I feel happy enough? Do I have enough moments of happiness added up that feel satisfying to me? And I do think many people, not all, and I think this is changing maybe, I do think many people believe falsely that having kids and becoming a parent is going to add more moments of happiness. I do think it's
Lauren (15:19.496)
Yeah.
Teri (15:45.5)
that is true to an extent. I do think there's different types of moments of happiness when you're a parent. But do I think it changes the overall when you zoom out and you look at your overall being and wellbeing, quality of life? I think it depends on what you value. And I think it depends on where you derive meaning from and what behaviors on a daily basis feed into what provides meaning for you.
Lauren (15:50.994)
Yeah.
Lauren (16:03.923)
Right.
Wilhelmina (16:12.686)
When I like, sorry, I was going to. You got you go, Vanessa.
Vanessa (16:12.77)
was looking at, I was just gonna say, I was trying to find out examples of like, okay, when they're talking about like joy, like with your children, like what are they talking about? What meaning? And they gave some really good examples of like, joy would be hearing your child laugh, a sweet bedtime moment, going on your family vacation. Whereas your meaning, purpose is like, know, sacrificing your sleep because your kid is sick, right? Showing up every time they have a game, you know, those sorts of things. So I think.
Lauren (16:28.852)
Yeah.
Teri (16:30.824)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa (16:40.222)
once you can kind of really understand like, do you mean by joy? What do you mean by meaning purpose? Then that can help you have a better understanding of what you're experiencing with your children and that relationship.
Teri (16:44.552)
Mmm... Mm-hmm.
Wilhelmina (16:53.687)
Well, and Terry, you had said zooming in versus zooming out. And I sort of think if you zoom in to any parent in the thick of parenting, so any one of us on any given day to the minutia of parenting, oftentimes you're like, hmm, you know, a lot of it is, you know, repetitive and there's fights and there's this and that. So when you zoom in, you do get these little glimpses in the moments. But what I think about is now
when I zoom out and look back, there could be times where, especially when the kids were really young, and I remember those days being tough, and yet I look back and I'm like, I wish I had like, you know, enjoyed those, or I wish I had just breathed those in and not worried so much. And I look back with sort of warmth looking back at those memories, not.
Lauren (17:33.076)
you
Teri (17:47.688)
Mm-hmm.
Wilhelmina (17:48.855)
Like, ugh, I hated that time, even though I know in the moment I was not always loving it. So I sort of, right, yes.
Teri (17:55.784)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa (17:56.022)
And that's the toughest time that you're describing is when the children are young, like babies, toddlers. That is the time that they describe as being the hardest period of time for parents to be in.
Teri (18:07.495)
Yes.
Lauren (18:09.0)
I think it depends, actually. I think every stage has its tough moments. So I think it really depends on how you sort of zoom in versus zoom out, how you define, like, what is it that you're looking for? If your expectations, you know, one of the things I was thinking about when you brought this topic to the table was Stephen Hayes research. So he's the...
Teri (18:31.644)
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Lauren (18:35.71)
founder, right? Would we say founder of acceptance and commitment therapy, which is a type of cognitive behavioral work. And he talks about because we have the ability to think we suffer. It's that thing that's unique to human beings, that we have the ability to engage in abstract thinking and imagine. And so often if we imagine it's going to be this amazing, beautiful, wonderful thing without difficulty, then it's never going to meet our expectations.
Teri (18:41.67)
Mm-hmm.
Wilhelmina (18:46.391)
Mm-hmm, yep.
Teri (18:46.534)
Mm-hmm.
Lauren (19:04.913)
And that then is going to cause the suffering. Whereas if we just like say to ourselves, like each age and stage of parenting is going to have its own difficulties and different kids and different parents are going to thrive and suffer at different stages for different reasons. Right? So it's not, I don't actually think it's necessarily true that the young state, the, you know, early stages of parenting are the hardest, maybe the ones in which we don't know what we're doing.
Teri (19:13.734)
Mm-hmm.
Wilhelmina (19:22.657)
Absolutely.
Lauren (19:34.868)
And we feel like we have these feelings of like, what in the world have I gotten myself into? But I think each age and stage, it's really dependent on what we think, what our expectations were for that age and stage. And then as Wilhelmina said, as you then look back on it, what you're imagining, what your perception is, it could be totally different because we have the ability to engage in that imagination.
Wilhelmina (20:01.762)
Well, Lauren, what you were saying about like the stages and the person, the parent, because I do think that some parents are really good at that baby stage and some parents are really good at the young kids stage and some parents are really good at the teen stage. I was actually just talking to someone and they were reflecting on their their their own parents and they were saying, you know, I think my parents were best when we were like little kids and then struggled.
Lauren (20:07.58)
Mm-hmm.
Teri (20:27.144)
Hmm.
Lauren (20:27.241)
Yeah.
Wilhelmina (20:29.14)
in adolescence and even in adulthood because they struggled with when they started to make choices that were different than theirs. And that became such an issue that, but was able to reflect they were really good when we were young. And yeah.
Lauren (20:45.128)
Yeah, that's interesting. Because it's those young individuals, adolescents, young adults are developing their own meaning and values and things like that. Yeah, the parents. Yeah, interesting.
Teri (20:45.436)
Yeah. Yeah.
Wilhelmina (20:54.306)
Yes, yes. And so when those values were different, they really struggled.
Teri (21:02.28)
It makes me think of there was a Wall Street Journal article a couple years ago, maybe like a while ago, five plus years ago, where the title of it was, The Key to Happiness is Deleting Your Expectations. And it outlines that is different than lowering your expectations, changing them or increasing them. It is approaching most life stages and events with openness and curiosity.
Lauren (21:15.934)
Yeah.
Wilhelmina (21:16.396)
Ooh.
Teri (21:30.972)
just deleting your expectations. And where that relates for me personally with becoming a parent, and I'm pretty open about this, when my husband and I were first married, we'll be married 17 years this fall, the first five years or so we didn't, I know, I know. I did not wanna have children. And I went into marriage feeling like, I think we'll have kids. And we had that conversation and we were,
Lauren (21:31.144)
Mm-hmm.
Lauren (21:45.26)
my god.
Wilhelmina (21:46.134)
Yeah, 20 years for here.
Lauren (21:48.166)
When did that happen? Sorry.
Teri (22:00.616)
27 when we got married, so there wasn't a rush. And about two years in, maybe a year or so in, my husband said to me, when do you think we want to have kids? And he's like, I sort of feel ready, it'd be cool to have a baby. Like he felt excited. And what happened those first couple of years of marriage is when I started working in private practice with a heavy caseload of kids and teens out in Naperville. And I don't think the population is totally skewed, but maybe a little bit. And I also came.
for with you, Lauren, working on an adolescent inpatient psych unit for our postdoctoral fellowship. And I was becoming very entrenched in the challenges of parenting tweens and teens and young adults. And I had a full glimpse behind the curtain. I saw I could see how the sausage was made. I saw the good, the bad and the ugly of what it means to parent on a regular basis. And I became somewhat jaded and pretty disillusioned and thought,
Lauren (22:30.836)
Yeah.
Lauren (22:47.152)
Mm-hmm.
Lauren (22:57.172)
Yeah. Yeah.
Teri (22:58.47)
I don't know if I actually want to sign up for this. This is, it doesn't seem worth it to have a cute little baby for one year, cute little toddler for one or two years. And then the majority of your parenting when your kid is in your household is when they are a teenager. If you look at a pie chart and you have 18 years, the majority of that proportion is when they are teens. And I remember thinking, I don't know if I really want to sign up for this. I feel like I would go in with my eyes wide open.
Wilhelmina (23:09.122)
now.
Teri (23:29.232)
And more time went by and I had multiple older family members sort of come at me and say, are you sure? And time was going by and a few things happened that sort of changed my mind. And we had our oldest Danny and now we've got two kids and I've had the experience of actually, I've said this to some of my friends, it's not as bad as so far as I thought it would be. So I've had the reverse because I think my expectations were so colored.
Wilhelmina (23:51.342)
No.
Lauren (23:51.41)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
whoa!
Teri (23:57.936)
Let me let me back up. When I got pregnant with Danny and until he was almost two years old, I worked in a therapeutic day school. So I went through my entire pregnancy and the first two years of his life working in a therapeutic day school with kids kindergarten through eighth grade, really tough kids emotionally and behaviorally. So I really my expectations were so low by the time I went into parenthood. And it's been knock on wood. I mean, we still have the teen years ahead. It has been for the most part.
Lauren (24:05.071)
right, I remember. huh. huh.
Wilhelmina (24:05.141)
Mm-hmm.
Wilhelmina (24:12.172)
really tough kids.
Lauren (24:15.901)
Mm-hmm.
Lauren (24:21.62)
Yeah.
Teri (24:27.29)
not always and today even might be an exception, for the most part, it's a whole different conversation, is for the most part, it's been better than I thought, which has been kind of cool. And it's, but again, I truly think deleting, I sort of like that phrase, like just deleting your expectations because it detaches from this idea of being happy.
Lauren (24:28.212)
Yeah.
Lauren (24:35.22)
You
Lauren (24:39.08)
Yeah. Yeah.
Wilhelmina (24:47.63)
I like it too.
Lauren (24:47.806)
Deleting.
Vanessa (24:50.358)
But that's, think that's hard. But I think that's really, I know, but I think that's really hard for like, I mean, we're all psychologists. So like, I think we like, I think it's much exactly right. And would I think that's hard? Yeah. And I think that's very hard for kind of other, you know, most people who are not psychologists to kind of be able to do that. Especially when you think about like, how much pressure people are feeling from their cohort, right? Like we're all psychologists in our cohort, but like imagine
Lauren (24:56.808)
Yeah, we have a benefit of a very unique experience.
Lauren (25:10.099)
Yeah.
Vanessa (25:19.606)
someone not a psychologist and their friends, right? And how much pressure you feel kind of to do the things like be a parent or not be a parent. So I think, you know, I think that's harder said than done basically, like to be able to go into it without any expectations because it's just not.
Lauren (25:37.192)
And I'm, know, to your, yeah, to your point, Vanessa, the pressure that you feel from your cohort, I'm constantly, surprise isn't the right word, but I don't know, enlightened. When I'm working with clients that are young adults and they have either gotten themselves into a situation in which they're doing something that they don't want to be doing, whether it's like educational path or pursuit or a relationship or starting a family or things like that.
and don't have any sense of what their value system is. And like we all know, like in our therapeutic practice, we kind of picture the values and development, or like how you would visualize your values as like a wheel or a pie, and really kind of understanding there's a lot of typical things that we might value as human beings, but they're not necessarily all the same. gonna change from, they might, may or may not change from things that you were taught as a child to value.
Wilhelmina (26:12.898)
Mm-hmm.
Teri (26:13.96)
Mm-hmm.
Lauren (26:35.836)
It's so interesting to me how many adults have zero sense of what is important to them, like what drives them, what their values are. And so I think without having that as a base, it would, to your point, be really easy to be socially pressured into a path of life that you think, so there's where the expectations come into play, you think is going to create a specific
Wilhelmina (26:56.686)
Mm-hmm.
Lauren (27:02.632)
feeling for you, which we know is not the goal, without realizing that really what you're looking for is a life of purpose or value.
Teri (27:05.896)
Mm-hmm.
Wilhelmina (27:11.998)
And I think you are absolutely right. I do this with my patients all of the time. We do a lot of values work and it takes quite a while. I mean, it's one identifying what a value is versus like a goal. It's not a goal. It doesn't have an end point. Yep. And to get oftentimes to get them out of the like moment right now, you kind of have to encourage them to think bigger than just, I like hanging out with
Lauren (27:23.698)
Yeah, it's not a goal. Yep. Yep.
Teri (27:26.802)
There's no end point. Yep.
Vanessa (27:28.705)
Mm-hmm.
Lauren (27:36.52)
Yes.
Wilhelmina (27:41.881)
friends and you know, doing that and okay, what else? What else do you like to do? And we spend a lot of time with that. I'm reading this book right now called Now It All Makes Sense by Alex Partridge. And he is, he has a section, it's a book on ADHD, but he has a section on kind of figuring out what you like and what truly brings you, I think he does talk about like happiness.
So he's probably falling victim to what we're just talking about. But he is saying, I will sell a book. It sold it to me. But he was talking about how so many people don't know truly what sort of who they are or what actually they enjoy doing. kind of broad strokes. So he said to keep a journal on your instant reaction to things.
Lauren (28:13.46)
you
Teri (28:15.912)
but it'll sell a book.
Lauren (28:17.908)
Put that word in there.
Teri (28:22.226)
Yeah?
Lauren (28:28.296)
Yeah.
Wilhelmina (28:40.974)
So he said, oftentimes we get in our own way. So he said, if someone asks you to do something and you think, oh, that'd be fun, write that down. Then don't follow up with like, oh, but do I have the time and I don't know and da, da, da, da, da. It's not about what choice you make, whether you do that thing or not, but it is that instant reaction of like, ooh, that sounded fun. That sounded like something that would be like enjoyable or like, oh God, that sounded like hell on earth.
Teri (28:41.948)
Cheers.
Wilhelmina (29:10.732)
then after you've completed something or done something, if that felt good in the end, write that down. And he said, over time, you will have this list of things that these are the things that kind of fill your cup, if you will. And he said, then use those to sort of guide what choices you make in life, where you spend your time, where you put your energies, what you say no to, what you say yes to.
So he wasn't necessarily saying it in terms of values, but that was sort of what he was getting at in terms of spending more time on the things that fill your cup versus the things that deplete you. And I really liked that idea of paying attention to that instant reaction before your mind gets in the way, before logistics get in the way, because we often have more data in that second than we do after we start to throw all of the other things in there.
Teri (30:08.488)
So the real simplistic way that some people come at that concept is if it's not an F yes, so if it's not a fuck yes or a hell yes, then it's a no. And so you immediately are like, do I wanna do this? Yes or no? Yeah. So that's, yeah, yeah.
Wilhelmina (30:15.34)
Yes. Yep. Yep.
Lauren (30:16.424)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa (30:16.52)
No.
Lauren (30:23.422)
But then aren't we talking about fleeting feelings in that regard? So this is different though. You're looking for things that are gonna make you feel good in the moment if you're looking for your instant reaction. you're not gonna ask yourself that question about like, do I wanna be a parent? so this is like a slightly different conversation because not all things, I mean, that was part of what he was saying. I'm correct, you guys let me know, cause you listened to the podcast that Dan Gilbert was saying is that we should,
we should not be looking for this thing, like parenting as an example, to make us happy, but rather, does it give us meaning and purpose? And so if you're trying to figure that piece out, you cannot ask yourself those instant questions because...
Teri (31:06.886)
Are you using fleeting emotional reactions to guide values?
Lauren (31:10.583)
Right.
Wilhelmina (31:12.044)
Well, you might be able to then, though, like a tapestry, like sew those together. Yes, look for patterns. Yeah, so I think that's more because then I think there's also things where, because he said pay attention to none of those like right away responses, but like after you've completed a task, how did that feel? So like that one could be something where you initially, yes, yes.
Teri (31:16.818)
Look for patterns.
Lauren (31:18.708)
Hmm patterns over time
Vanessa (31:18.72)
Yeah, think that's the point of journaling. Yeah.
Teri (31:20.829)
Yeah.
Lauren (31:31.092)
Mmm.
So like even if it was something that was hard and you were uncomfortable, but then you said, I actually enjoyed that public speaking or something. Okay.
Wilhelmina (31:40.355)
Yes, exactly. Or you put work into a project, you say yes to something for your kid's school, let's just say, and in the middle of it, you're like, why did I do this? But then at the end, you're like, I really liked that. That felt good. I liked seeing the outcome of that. I liked the appreciation I got back, whatever. Well, then that's something that you do enjoy.
doing things that you see the outcome and you see it come to life. And so you might not always enjoy every moment of the process, but you like that end result. So there would be something where like, it's not just that fleeting, but it is that end result you got, that filled your cup.
Lauren (32:21.588)
That makes sense. One of the things that when I had just, I had a few minutes to do a little bit of prep and one of the things that they were talking about with Dan Gilbert, because he's a social psychologist by trade, I think, and they were talking a little bit about one of the big pitfalls. Because I think you guys mentioned that at the beginning, talking about the things that like absolutely are like the wrong approach to seeking happiness or whatever it is, is he was saying something and I'm wondering.
Wilhelmina (32:32.878)
Yeah, yes.
Lauren (32:50.728)
Let me phrase this as I'm wondering if you guys can elaborate if he talked about this, about when there's expectations that something should make you happy, that that's usually when people experience the most negative feelings. I immediately thought of something like New Year's Eve. The expectations are so high for there to be these happy moments or something like that, that often it falls short of expectations. Did they discuss that?
Teri (33:08.936)
yes.
Wilhelmina (33:09.186)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Vanessa (33:10.133)
yeah.
Lauren (33:20.466)
Like these, like more of those moment things versus interesting.
Wilhelmina (33:23.458)
They didn't discuss it. No, they didn't discuss it in the podcast, but I very much think that there would be something there with that. mean, Owen and I have always said, and Terri, I think we've talked about this too, where back in the day when we were going out with friends and whatever, it'd be the nights where you had no plan. You're like, I don't know, let's just get together. And then all of a sudden you're like, do you remember that night? That's the night we went there and then we ran into that person there and there was no plan. And then the nights where you spent so much time and energy.
Vanessa (33:24.129)
No.
Lauren (33:41.532)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Teri (33:41.979)
Mm-hmm.
Wilhelmina (33:53.336)
putting it into it and then you're like, I mean, it was fine. It was okay.
Lauren (33:56.188)
Yeah, that's a good example of expectations versus reality. And if our expectations are off, that's when we're more likely to experience unhappiness.
Teri (33:56.744)
It was fine.
And it's like, right?
Teri (34:07.228)
That.
Vanessa (34:07.468)
He also spends a lot of time talking about like the opposite of, I mentioned this in the beginning of how we think things are gonna be so terrible. Like, I just think that as human beings, just bad at gauging the happiness, right? That we think that things are gonna be so much worse than they are and for longer periods of time. So he was like talking about how, know, doing like these studies where they ask someone like, okay, if you lost your job, like on a scale of one to 10, how terrible would you feel one being the worst? And like, I would feel like a,
Lauren (34:15.118)
okay, yes.
Yeah!
Wilhelmina (34:24.846)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa (34:36.64)
like a three and then when they actually like down the road have them measure it, it's like a six. So it's like not actually as bad. So I thought that was so interesting because they bring up like, you know, someone going through divorce, right? Being the receiver of someone saying they don't want to be married to you, you're devastated, you think your life's over, right? The one that really hit home for me was loss. Like when you lose someone that you love, right? You in that moment, you feel like your world is ending.
Lauren (34:38.013)
Okay.
Wilhelmina (34:56.59)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Vanessa (35:01.77)
and that you can't go on, right? And again, that depends on how close this person is to you and your relationship to them of how devastating that feeling is. Loss is always terrible, right? But then as time goes on, right? Like it becomes, you know, it's not that it goes away or that you, right, that you don't miss that person, but you go back to work, you continue living your life, right? And you kind of move on and you can be okay. So I thought that was like another.
Lauren (35:02.068)
Yeah. Yep.
Lauren (35:16.702)
or palatable.
Vanessa (35:29.174)
That's like kind of the flip side of us, right? Like we're not great at saying what's making us happy, but then I think we're also not good at realizing how resilient we are. And I think that's, to me, that was the really interesting part of that whole conversation was that we are more resilient than we give ourselves credit for and that we need to acknowledge that. I think that's equally important as us, you know, not chasing this unrealistic happiness, but then also realizing when bad things happen to us that we can overcome them and, and we can.
Lauren (35:31.208)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Wilhelmina (35:55.81)
We can and do overcome them.
Vanessa (35:57.25)
Exactly, we do. Yeah. I thought that was such an interesting aspect of this, you know, happiness conversation is things aren't as terrible as we think they will be when things happen.
Teri (35:58.376)
Mm-hmm.
Teri (36:08.565)
So bottom line is we're terrible evaluators of what's going to make us momentarily happy and what's going to devastate us and make us miserable.
Vanessa (36:13.11)
We are. Yeah. Yeah. He also talks about how we're bad at learning from our mistakes, which I thought was also fascinating. So yeah. So.
Lauren (36:17.726)
Well, and it
Wilhelmina (36:20.11)
Yes. Yes.
Teri (36:22.176)
obviously. jail. Yeah. Think about people. Repeat offenders in jail. Seriously.
Lauren (36:22.482)
Yeah.
Wilhelmina (36:25.875)
Seriously, Harry? Yes, yes.
Vanessa (36:28.502)
Yes. So it's like he says that we learn from our mistakes, but not enough. So that was like his point. But he talks about how, which this was also like this aha moment. I thought about dating when he started talking about this. It just made me think of dating. How like, I won't say you know, but in my personal experience, I kept dating the same. If I look back on it later, I was like, I keep dating the same person and the same. Why am I dating the same?
Teri (36:32.498)
Mm-hmm.
Wilhelmina (36:42.284)
Yes.
Wilhelmina (36:53.07)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Teri (36:54.14)
version.
Vanessa (36:56.534)
different, different looks different, but same version. And it's because we don't learn enough. And then he talked about how, you know, we always talk about how like older people are so, you know, that they're, that they, they're more mature, they figured out and it's like, no, it's because they've learned that they've had that lesson multiple times. So like, the time they're older, they have, they have learned enough about whatever that is so that they can have that, that
Lauren (36:57.342)
Yeah.
Wilhelmina (37:07.234)
Yes, I love this.
Lauren (37:14.078)
Yeah.
Vanessa (37:20.662)
good perception of the situation, whereas someone younger has only experienced it once or twice and they haven't learned enough. So I thought that was also such an interesting aspect of all of this conversation, right? So learning from the mistakes again, so that you can avoid something that may not make you happy or realizing that you're more resilient, that that's also a part of this kind of puzzle of finding your kind of balance in life.
Lauren (37:32.829)
Yeah.
Teri (37:45.466)
I often remind parents of, frustrated parents of teens or young adults when they are frustrated with their child's behavior or romantic partner choices, career path, et cetera. And I have said to them a version of, you have so much more lived experience and practice to draw upon. You are expecting your 20 year old to make a well-informed decision.
Vanessa (38:05.846)
Yeah.
Lauren (38:06.462)
Yeah.
Teri (38:12.218)
You think you know what's best because you are 55 years old. You have had so, yes, you've had so many other experiences to draw upon and you've had examples and people you know and you have wisdom to draw upon. yes, you have been, your executive functioning skills are well honed because you got to craft your life exactly how you want it right now with your exercise time and your leisure, especially when it comes to helpful behaviors. You know, for example,
Lauren (38:12.478)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa (38:15.81)
Yeah, and you've experienced this multiple times.
Teri (38:41.018)
I know exercise would help my daughter's anxiety. Why doesn't she just exercise a couple of times a week? I'm like, right, you have figured out how to incorporate exercise into your routine because you are in your 50s. Your 20 year old has not.
Wilhelmina (38:52.694)
to ask that person. Yes, I love to ask this person, how often were you, you know, working on your exercise?
Teri (38:56.654)
exercising regularly at age 20. Yes, exactly, exactly. And it really aligns with what you were saying, Vanessa, that having that wisdom of years and lived experience and practice of what works and what doesn't work is really valuable.
Vanessa (38:56.993)
you
Wilhelmina (39:15.064)
I also, and I mentioned this at the beginning of the podcast, it made me think, and this is with regards to marriage and what I had said about those little annoyances that are actually sometimes bigger deals than those big moments. It made me think of the Gottman's and the weekly check-in that you're supposed to do, supposed to do whatever, you know. But it made me think that's exactly why.
Vanessa (39:31.842)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa (39:35.701)
talk about that,
Lauren (39:39.172)
date.
Wilhelmina (39:44.759)
because if you're having regular temperature checks with your partner about your marriage, you can address these annoyances and do something about them. Well, instead of letting them build up and build up and build up to the point that they become so big that everything is annoying you and there's almost no way to like.
Vanessa (40:06.732)
Right. And that impacts your happiness. That impacts your happiness in relationship. Then your happiness in your relationship goes down. Right. So the point is to.
Teri (40:07.08)
You're in deep. You're in deep.
Wilhelmina (40:07.394)
Come back from that. Yes, you're in deep. Yes. Goes down.
Lauren (40:14.184)
I was going to say, was this with regard to?
Wilhelmina (40:17.462)
It was with regards to, he had a study and Adam Grant talked about the study. I can get the exact detail, but I think it was a study that, or a book even that Dan Gilbert had published and put out there that really talked about how the things that stick with us the most are not the big.
horrific things that happen in life, but those small things that just bother us. And those are the things that stay with us for longer. And often, like, we never get over them. These, little things throughout life versus these big moments. And...
Lauren (40:54.014)
So those were contributors to unhappiness.
Vanessa (40:57.154)
think both. I think it can go both ways, right? So like if you're letting the little things bother you, it's grading on your level of happiness, right? So I think it goes both ways. Yeah, I mean, he was basically giving an example of like things that impact your happiness and also, yeah, your day-to-day happiness. And then also kind of the root, yeah, that that's really.
Lauren (40:59.422)
Okay.
Lauren (41:04.638)
Mm-hmm.
Wilhelmina (41:14.008)
day to day.
Teri (41:15.698)
Day-to-day stressors.
Lauren (41:16.532)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Wilhelmina (41:19.02)
And then how that can then contribute to like long term. So think about the person that's like annoyed at everything. They're just like nothing, they're looking at the world and it's just every day, it's kind of like they've just built up their lens to be filling their cup with just the negative versus something else. I mean, that's a little bit of a different view, I guess, but it...
It sort of makes sense that if you're holding on and you're not sort of dealing with these little annoyances, they aren't just nothing. And maybe there is a way to sort of either consciously let them go, which of course easier said than done, acknowledge them and let them go versus like letting them fester because they actually do us, like they don't do us any good. They will stick around and they will sort of just fester.
and that will decrease in time are just general life satisfaction. That's, think, kind of the poll. I think that's what Dan Gilbert was sort of getting at.
Vanessa (42:27.542)
Yeah, he gave the example of, part of that was that he was saying how we rise to the occasion to like overcome bad situations. And so he gave the example of, you know, we go through a divorce and of course we're devastated. And then at some point we can kind of reframe that or rationalize that, whatever word you want to use, cope with that, right? And we're like, okay, this happened, now I can move on, but it's the little things, right? You get support, you kind of fix that, right? And you move on.
Lauren (42:27.59)
I think that's yeah, go ahead.
Wilhelmina (42:46.286)
Yeah, get-
Get support, get support.
There are coping skills to deal with the big things.
Vanessa (42:55.456)
Right, and then he talks about the little things like the dirty dishes that don't ever get washed by your significant other, that was an example, and how we don't often spend the time to reframe that, to rationalize that, to cope with that, and then it starts to of grate on us. And so we do, again, not a great job of trying to fix these little things that really are the things that kind of have more of a negative impact across time.
Lauren (43:02.664)
Right.
Vanessa (43:22.176)
we spend our, but we do do that for these kind of bigger life situation events. So that was kind of where he was going with that point of how, well, it's important to like do that for these big events that you should also be spending time on these smaller things so that they don't fester and start to hinder your happiness.
Lauren (43:39.028)
It's interesting, yeah, because I mean, when I hear you say that, it goes all the way back to the beginning of what you guys, what the whole point of this, you know, their discussion was and our discussion, which is the difference in expectations. So those big events, you're not expecting to breed happiness out of like a loss, right? And so going through that, you're able to kind of probably attend to the moments of support and gratitude.
Wilhelmina (43:57.176)
Right.
Vanessa (43:57.248)
Right, or divorce, right, yeah.
Lauren (44:06.1)
those like little blessings that are happening within that loss as opposed to the day to day. If your expectations are that a marriage or parenting is all these little moments of happiness, right? Then it is going to really shift your perception in the way that you handle and deal with those annoyances. If instead you're saying happiness is fleeting and there's gonna be moments of happiness every day and moments of crap.
every day like the dishes not being put in the dishwasher. But that's just as fleeting as that moment of happiness. And what did we learn in the research? And I tell people this all the time. The height of any emotional experience is about 15 minutes. So if you can just write it out, you're very likely going to feel something different in 15 more minutes. But we forget that. So to your point, if you're adding up those fleeting moments as this big
Teri (44:42.013)
Mm-hmm.
Wilhelmina (44:50.446)
Yep.
Lauren (45:02.472)
thing and you're never a little, you know, addressing them, acknowledging that they'll pass, acknowledging them through communication with your partner or whomever to shift what's happening in that moment, but you're looking at it as this is my marriage, then yeah, I could see how it would have fall apart over time.
Wilhelmina (45:15.672)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa (45:18.122)
Or even just, you know, instead of kind of being upset every time you see the dishes, having a conversation with your spouse, hey, like, I need some help here. You know, how do you want to, you know, do the dishes? Like I do them, you know, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, you do, right? So like being able to address it again, how do I address this and resolve this so that it's not this thing that's kind of just lingering. And every time I see the dishes, I'm going to get upset about it. And then tomorrow they're going to be here again. And I'm going to set, instead of kind of staying in that vicious negative cycle.
Lauren (45:24.02)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Vanessa (45:46.998)
Like how do you break that? Like what do you need to do for that to change? Either you accept it, I know Gottman's are like, you accept the fact that your spouse is not going to do the dishes and you are okay with that and you move on, or you sit down with them and say, this is not okay with me, how can we work together to like correct this thing that's bothering me?
Wilhelmina (46:03.992)
Mm-hmm.
Lauren (46:07.058)
Makes sense?
Wilhelmina (46:08.752)
did Terry.
Lauren (46:10.585)
Did we lose Terry? Terry, are you there? we might have lost Terry. I was just going to say this makes a whole lot of sense.
Wilhelmina (46:13.289)
I think we might have lost Terry.
Vanessa (46:16.14)
Well.
All right, any last thoughts? We've lost Harry, but any last thoughts on our topic today? She was like, I'm done. Well, thank you for joining us today on The Shrinkdown. Please join us next time.
Lauren (46:23.536)
No. It's like, well, my happiness right now. Yeah.
Wilhelmina (46:23.662)
Two hands in the last thoughts, apparently.