Live Happy Now

Having hope is crucial not just to our happiness, but to our survival. But what happens when you start to lose hope? This week’s guest is Margaret Dulaney, founder of the popular spiritual spoken word site, Listen Well. In her latest book, Parables of Sunlight, she tells her own story of finding hope during difficult times. She’s here today to talk about her story and what we can all learn about hope, perseverance, and resilience.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why practicing hope is a necessity, not a luxury.
• How to build your “hope muscle”.
• How being in nature helps nurture hope.

March is a special month at Live Happy Now, because the International Day of Happiness is on March 20. But we celebrate happiness all month long with something we call #HappyActs. This week, Live Happy cofounder and CEO Deborah K. Heisz talks about how to celebrate the International Day of Happiness in a socially distanced world and how to be a part of our brand new Live Happy gratitude challenge.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• How to participate in the Live Happy Gratitude Challenge.
• What the International Day of Happiness is all about.
• How to celebrate happiness all month long.

As we wrap up Mental Health Awareness month, it’s a great time to talk about how social media affects mental health — and how you can use it to support a happier, more meaningful life. Host Paula Felps is joined by coach, speaker and influencer Giselle Ugarte, who helps people learn how to build their confidence, reframe their relationship with social media, and show up more authentically at work and in their relationships.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• How to use social media for positive interactions and deepening your relationships.
• Signs that social media may be having a negative effect on you and what to do about it.
• How to curate your social media feed so it will have a positive impact on your self-esteem and self-confidence.

Every day we’re surrounded by sights, sounds, and smells — but we often take them for granted. This week, host Paula Felps is joined by New York Times bestselling author Gretchen Rubin, to talk about how tuning into our five senses can make us happier and healthier. Her new book, Life in Five Senses: How exploring the senses got me out of my head and into the world, takes a deep dive into what each of our senses has to teach us and explains how we can explore them to improve our well-being.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• How dialing into our senses can reduce anxiety, boost productivity, and spark creativity.
• The connection between our senses and memories.
• Using our senses to stay grounded and live in the present moment.

When acclaimed jazz vocalist Allegra Levy became a parent, she began noticing that the lyrics of classic children’s songs didn’t fit in today’s world of equity and inclusion. As a mother, she was concerned about what messages children were getting from the music and as a musician, she didn’t want to raise her child with songs that had been musically “dumbed down.” So she began writing her own jazz-tinged children’s music with a positive spin on mental well-being. The result is a new album, Songs for You and Me, and in this episode she talks about the importance of experiencing music as a family.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• How the pandemic inspired her to rethink children’s music.
• Why children need to hear more inclusive music.
• What parents can do to use music as a tool for learning and creativity.