You Can Spark More Joy in Your Life Says Wellness Writer Jennifer King Lindley
Show Snapshot:
Want to spark more joy in your life? The power to be happier lies within you – says wellness writer Jennifer King Lindley, author of Find Your Joy: A Powerful Self-Care Journal to Help You Thrive, who offers easy exercises, tips, and empowering ideas to help you find your joy and experience inner peace all year long. Yes, please!
In This Episode We Cover:
1. Why the power to be happier lies within us.
2. How to leverage actionable, science-backed steps from the field of positive psychology to cultivate more joy and improve your mood.
3. Think joy is spontaneous, unbidden? Think again. You can take daily steps to create more joy.
4. You know you want to cultivate more gratitude, self-compassion and identify purpose in your life – we cover easy ideas to get into action.
5. How to speak to yourself kindly.
6. We dive into gratitude as a “daily vitamin,” pro-social acts, affirmation, social glue and a buffet of benefits from intentional living.
7. Yes, you can have power over your emotions.
8. Hacks, prompts, and behaviors to make your life happier, more content, and richer.
9. Why sleep is the foundation of self-care.
Quotable:
The practices in this book are meant to be useful both in times when things are going well and when times are really stressful. I pulled these from a field called positive psychology because there’s a lot of really interesting research going on in this field that gives actionable, very practical steps that people can take to cultivate joy and improve their mood by themselves.
People who are high in self-compassion, sleep better, have better immunity, have less depression, anxiety. Self-compassion is a skill that we can get better at and when you think about it, why should we be beating ourselves up?
More Resources:
Find Jennifer:
Jennifer’s book:
Find Your Joy: A Powerful Self-Care Journal to Help You Thrive
Jennifer’s holiday recipe that sparks joy:
Transcript
Katie Fogarty (0:04):
Welcome to A Certain Age, a show for women who are unafraid to age out loud. What if I told you that you can spark more joy in your life? And that you can learn to cultivate self-compassion, calm your mind, increase your sense of well-being, and better savor life’s small pleasures? Sounds amazing right? Sign me up.
My guest today is going to walk us through how can we can spark more joy in our lives and find purpose and inner peace. Jennifer King Lindley is the author behind Find Your Joy: A Powerful Self-Care Journal to Help You Thrive, which offers easy exercises, tips, writing prompts, and empowering ideas from top psychologists and other experts to help you find your joy. An award-winning magazine writer for over 25 years, Jennifer covers wellness, health, psychology and joy for magazines including Real Simple, Health, Good Housekeeping, Martha Stewart Living and O the Oprah magazine. Welcome Jen.
Jennifer King Lindley (1:02):
Thank you so much for having me.
Katie (1:04):
I’m really excited because you are kicking off our December shows. We are focusing all month long on celebrating and joy but as we all know, this time of year can also be somewhat overwhelming and intense, and frenetic. December is a metaphor for life, it’s steroids, highs, lows, joys, stressors. How can we use your book to help find calm and joy in this season and all year long?
Jennifer (1:31):
Well, I think the practices in this book that I come up with are meant to be useful both in times when things are going well and when times are really stressful, which as you say, is this season. I pulled these from a field called positive psychology and I’ve done a lot of writing on that topic in the past decade. So, when Hearst magazine publishers approached me to write some kind of self-guided journal, I immediately thought a positive psychology slant would be very helpful because there’s a lot of really interesting research going on in this field that helps give actionable, very practical steps that people can take to cultivate joy and improve their mood by themselves.
Katie (2:29):
Yeah, it’s so amazing. I mean, we think about joy as something that just kind of happens spontaneously; you’re having an incredible time, or something that’s just arrived in your life, or maybe it’s a season and you’re experiencing joy. But this notion that you can actually sort of cultivate it and generate it for yourself is something that feels a little bit new to me but obviously to new to you because you’ve been writing about it for years. Walk us through a little bit about your career, the writing that you’ve done in the past and why Hearst came to you and said, write this book. Because it’s kind of amazing to be asked to write a book.
Jennifer (3:02):
Well, it was under the auspices of Prevention magazine which I’ve written for on health and wellness topics over the years. They knew that my niche is self-help, psychology, wellness and that I would be a good translator of this information. So the idea was, I went and I talked to psychologists, researchers at universities about how they are using these practices and researching them to get the most out of them. It’s stuff like gratitude, self-compassion, purpose, recognizing your strengths. These are all things I’ve been writing about for magazines over the years and this book was sort of a chance to put them together into one useful guide that readers could pick and choose through to find what might be most helpful to them.
Katie (4:03):
I love this book, first of all. The table of contents has chapters like “Befriend Yourself. Let it Go. Bond With Others. Count Your Blessings.” Even just simply reading the table of contents feels so soothing. [Jennifer laughs] I was really immediately pulled in. I thought this is gonna make me feel better. So, let’s start with Chapter 1 which is “Befriend Yourself.” How do we learn to treat ourselves kindly?
Jennifer (4:28):
So, the idea behind this chapter came from some interviews I did with Kristin Neff at the University of Texas at Austin and she’s really the pioneer in self-compassion research. The idea behind self-compassion is we tend to treat ourselves much worse than we treat anybody else. What would happen if we treated ourselves instead as we do with a friend who is going through something difficult or had messed up and made a mistake? So, she actually studied this as a practice and found that people who are high in self-compassion, sleep better, have better immunity, have less depression, anxiety. So, she’s made sort of an intuitive concept a subject of study and found ways that we can all get better at it. It’s a skill that we can get better at and when you think about it, why should we be beating ourselves up? Why should we be so hard on ourselves when we know we’re all trying our best? [laughs]
Katie (5:30):
No, absolutely, absolutely.
Jennifer (5:31):
So, that really resonated with me.
Katie (5:33):
Yeah, me as well.
Jennifer (5:33):
Her research and her thinking there.
Katie (5:36):
So tell me, it’s funny my favorite yoga teacher always ends class by saying, “Please be kind to yourself and each other.” And I think it’s such a beautiful way to end, and it always makes me think I’m much nicer to other people than I am to myself. [laughs] So, it’s a good reminder that we need to treat ourselves as we would the people in our lives.
Jennifer (5:56):
And I think the idea behind it, the positive motivation for doing so is you think, if I’m not hard on myself I won’t be able to achieve everything I need to. I need to sort of be a nag to keep myself being successful and continuing to grow. But Neff said to me, if you were trying your best at your first 10k, if you had a coach that was yelling at you, this is terrible, you’re a loser.
Katie (6:34):
You’re never gonna make it over the finish line. [laughs]
Jennifer (6:37):
Yeah. How would you perform? Not very well. So why do we take that tact with ourselves? Instead, you can still keep yourself to high standards by being a supportive coach to yourself. This is, you know, you’re doing fine, you’ve made a lot of progress, let’s look toward the next race. Speaking in those sort of compassionate but still constructive and caring ways is the essence of self-compassion.
Katie (7:04):
So interesting. I love that we have this critical inner voice because we think we need it to be a task master but we can really turn that critical voice more into an inner coach. So what would be one to two tactical ideas that you can share with our listeners, so that they can befriend themselves and speak to themselves kindly?
Jennifer (7:24):
Yeah, so what I’ve found useful is this idea of just thinking about, what’s one thing you’re maybe beating yourself up for right now? It could be not going to the gym all last week because you were too busy, or blowing a deadline by a day, in my case. [both laugh] But you think about and you can even write down how you are describing this problem to yourself, this mistake, and if you write it down or think about it you’re probably being very hard on yourself, very self-critical, and blaming yourself, maybe using words like you’re lazy, everybody else is able to get to the gym. So, really think about how you’re talking to yourself about a specific thing you feel you haven’t measured up. Then take a deep breath, then write, think about the problem that you’re beating yourself up for, not going to the gym last week, what if a friend said that? You wouldn’t be excoriating them, you’d be saying oh well this is a crazy week but the holidays coming up and I know you’ve got seven million things going on, you’ll get back next week, it was a chance to get some rest and consolidation in. You would be talking in a much more warm and friendly way. So, Neff says that’s a skill we can get better at and even if it doesn’t come naturally to us, looking at how we’re talking to ourselves and then changing that narrative can, over time, become your default.
Katie (9:13):
I love that, I love that. Tell yourself a different story about what’s going on in your life and choose a more optimistic and kind perspective. We are gonna cover your chapter that also caught my eye, “Count Your Blessings,” right after this commercial break. Because this is a chapter about gratitude and we’re in a season of gratitude and I want you to be able to share with our listeners all the science-backed benefits of expressing thanks. Right after this quick break.
[Ad break]
Katie (10:43):
Okay, Jennifer, we’re back from our break. We just talked about how we can treat ourselves kindly but we wanna talk now about how we can treat others kindly, how we can express gratitude and give thanks. We’ve just come out of Thanksgiving, we’re now into our season of celebration. You have a wonderful chapter called "Count Your Blessings.” It talks about gratitude and one of the things that jumped out of me in this chapter is when you quote a doctor who says that gratitude needs to be like taking a vitamin, it’s something you do every day. So, what are some specific tools or prompts for adding a daily gratitude vitamin to our routines?
Jennifer (11:22):
So, that’s a great question and I’m thinking maybe a number of your listeners already have a gratitude practice. From the researchers I’ve talked to, you want to, when you’re writing down, for instance, your gratitude practice is to write down a list of three things you’re grateful for every day, you want to make sure to keep it fresh because it loses it’s potency if you wake up every day, I’m “Thankful for my family, my health, my dog.”
Katie (11:54):
Right, the standard hits. [laughs]
Jennifer (11:56):
Yeah, the usual hits. So you can sort of freshen up your gratitude practice by giving yourself different prompts like; what am I grateful for that’s so small that it would fit in the teacup?
Katie (12:11):
Ooo, I love that.
Jennifer (12:11):
And you can kind of think about, it makes you sort of scan your world for things you maybe aren’t attending to. Another best practice is to get pretty specific in your reflection on gratitude. If you’re grateful for a walk you had with a friend, think in detail about what it felt like, what you saw, what you shared and if you’re writing it down, write three or four sentences these details, make it granular. That can have more potency than just doing the laundry list. But what I found really interesting about gratitude, I just did a piece in the November Health magazine, the print version, and it was all about expressing gratitude to other people. So, we might feel grateful and that’s a wonderful thing and I certainly practice it, but it’s like the secret sauce if you take the next step and actually share that with another person.
Katie (13:18):
And what would that look like? By sharing it would you say it to them? Would you write it to them in a letter, in an email? What do you recommend tactically?
Jennifer (13:25):
So, I talked to Amit Kumar at the University of Texas at Austin who studies pro-social acts including gratitude. He had a study several years ago where he had people write juts short email thank-you’s to people in their lives. It could be their sixth-grade teacher, a coach, a dear friend, a childhood friend, anybody that was important to them, and he had them write just three or four lines on email and his study found that people before they write it, think it’s gonna be awkward, think they’re not gonna say the right thing, think the other person’s gonna be weirded out, [Katie laughs] thinks they’re gonna seem like they’re sucking up. These are all the fears we bring to it.
Katie (14:11):
That’s so wild.
Jennifer (14:12):
But when they test, when they asked the recipients how they felt, two of one they were extremely happy, they were very grateful, some were ecstatic, and it didn’t matter what people said, it didn’t matter if you had cross-outs, it didn’t matter if you weren’t Shakespeare, it was the sentiment and the authenticity and that was an extremely powerful reminder that taking that step and expressing gratitude to people might feel weird, but it will be very great for both of you.
Katie (14:52):
Sure.
Jennifer (14:52):
There’s huge benefits for both of you. So, certainly writing a letter or an email, just getting in that habit. One of the people I talked to said, just keep a stack of thank you notes that you think are beautiful on your desk, it’s a reminder to just send a quick note at the end of something you’ve experienced. Have stamps so it doesn’t get put into the “someday” category.
Katie (15:16):
Sure, no barriers. Make it easy.
Jennifer (15:18):
Anything to make it easier, yeah.
Katie (15:19):
Make it easy, I love that.
Jennifer (15:21):
And there’s also good evidence just expressing gratitude can help romantic partnerships. You know, there’s the Gottman famous research that you want to have five positive interactions for every one negative one to, you know, keep your marriage or keep your partnership strong. And indeed we tend to take those closest to us for granted and it might feel weird to actually thank somebody for, you know, doing something you expect them to do. But articulating that and acknowledging that they’ve done something that shows care is a very potent way to build a connection and to bond.
Katie (16:07):
I love that. I think that, first of all, that’s a fascinating data point that five pieces of, sort of, positive affirmation are needed to offset that negative interaction. And, you know, I’m gonna remember that when I’m interacting with my husband Mike and he’s gonna be the happy beneficiary [both laugh] of this factoid. Because it is, you are truly, he’s the most important person in my life, and I’m sure there are times where I’m taking that for granted, we need to be mindful about sharing that.
You jogged a memory for me; I recently had blood work done and got super faint in the office. And the woman who was running the front desk and doing the blood work was so kind to me and gave me her own unopened water out of her lunch bottle because they didn’t have one in the thing. She was so wonderful. I went back and gave her water but I literally thought to myself, I should have shown up with flowers. She was so kind to me and I felt like she deserved something extra special but what I decided to do was write a letter to her boss because that’s probably gonna make her happier at the end of the day than flowers. So, you know, you can let a manager of a restaurant know that your hostess, your waitress was fantastic. You can let somebody, a manager in a store know that you got great help from somebody. There are so many different ways to practice gratitude in your life and pay it forward a little bit.
Jennifer (17:31):
Yeah. That’s beautiful, that’s wonderful you did that. Also, I think it was Kumar that told me that if, you get in the habit once you start looking around for people to be grateful for, you begin to see people’s efforts. He said, maybe it’s the barista that sees you, knows your drink, has it ready. Best practices for thanking people in person is saying, “Wow thank you, it really means a lot to me that you always are ready and you know I like extra cinnamon.” Really articulating that you have seen the care and concern they’re showing and being specific and granular, has a lot of impact in the kind of gratitude expression you give and really, every time somebody hears that it’s going to make their day.
Katie (18:24):
Yes, sometimes extra effort looks like extra cinnamon, that’s so special. [Jennifer laughs] Another thing that you said in this chapter that really stuck with me which I wanna share with our listeners. In this chapter, “Building Gratitude,” one of the experts that you interviewed said sometimes people start to think, Oh my gosh, expressing gratitude is a new thing on my to-do list. But they were saying you can really build in a small trigger that allows you to reflect on gratitude. So, one example was, every time you open a door. Say you’re opening your front door to walk in, or you’re opening the door of your office, every time you open a door, think of you know, one to two things that you’re grateful for. And this way, you can build this trigger that allows the habit to take hold. I thought this was very smart.
Jennifer (19:12):
Mhm, yes, yes. I had another researcher tell me that she has a wreath on her door as she enters and she changes it seasonally but every time she sees the wreath, that’s her reminder to feel gratitude.
Katie (19:28):
I so love that. You know, to look around and use something in your daily life as a prompt to help you build this wonderful and healthy habit.
Jennifer (19:37):
Well, the connection that gratitude, one of the things that were coming out in the new research is that gratitude, the thinking is it was of evolutionary benefit, it binds us together. When we express gratitude, that the other person thinks higher of us and wants to do something for us. And so in evolutionary psychology, the idea is that our gratitude is really bonding us and connecting us. And in this epidemic of loneliness that we can experience, this is one more way to get some social glue.
Katie (20:17):
I love that, social glue. I think that’s really… You identified something. It’s very easy to look at the world in the news and to have negative thoughts and negative judgments about our fellow people, our fellow humans. If we look for those small reasons to be grateful, the barista, the very kind you know, blood draw clerk who helped me out, [laughs] you’re just reminded that we have more in common that knits us together than divides us. So, I love that.
Jennifer (20:49):
Absolutely.
Katie (20:50):
Let’s talk about the chapter “Experience Delight” because this caught my eye, I was like, I wanna be delighted. [both laugh] I dove right in. This chapter was really fun because it’s about savoring life’s pleasures. And in the chapter you say what we all know, we are supposed to stop and smell the roses. We get this, but we’re busy racing through modern life. We’re distracted by our phones, we’re distracted by our to-dos. I alluded to this at the top of the show, we’re in a very joyful, but very frenetic season, how can we slow down? How can we savor big and small joys? How do we make this a practice?
Jennifer (21:31):
Yeah, and it’s such a good point that this is such a great season to practice it because we are so rushed but we also have lots of sort of fresh delights to savor and, you know, humans like new things, they like special things.
So, the idea behind savoring was sort of developed as a theory by Fred Bryant at Loyola University and his definition of it is to wring every morsel out of a good experience, small or large. So, if something good happens to you, you don’t just sort of look, acknowledge it and move on but you really want to be present and experience it with all your senses, maybe share it with somebody, really be in that moment, don’t let it pass by. And the idea is, you know, we don’t come by this naturally because the folks that… Our evolutionary ancestors who survived were the ones who were looking for the wolf not the butterfly. [Katie laughs] So, we had to kind of retrain ourselves to put on these different glasses and look around for not the next disaster, or the next problem, or the next thing to fix, but the next thing we can really enjoy and appreciate that maybe we would have passed over.
Katie (23:07):
So, that is a wonderful tip, to just really focus on what’s right in front of you that’s bringing joy to your life and not look ahead because we often worry about the future rather than focusing on the present. And being present truly is a practice that can be difficult. And I say this for myself, I take yoga, I adore it, it’s something that really adds a lot of richness to my life, but I’ve not been able to meditate even though I’ve wanted to take that on because my brain will not let me be present, it’s just racing right ahead.
Jennifer (23:43):
Oh, I know. I’ve tried to meditate and I get to like, breath three and I’m like, let me do my supermarket list.
Katie (23:49):
Exactly.
Jennifer (23:49):
Or I’m doing this wrong.
Katie (23:51):
[laughs] You’re like I have other things to be doing. [Jennifer laughs] Some people are great at meditating and kudos to you, but for listeners who are thinking, I have trouble being present, I have trouble focusing, what could be some tactical ideas for allowing them to build their muscle for savoring?
Jennifer (24:10):
Sure. So, I think a good example is to maybe even if it doesn’t come naturally say, I’m going to go on a walk and I’m going to find three things to savor. Sort of have that as a goal, that way you’re on the hunt for things to savor. It could be like, I’m in Indiana, the leaves are just falling and when I was walking my dog today, I was just appreciating the sort of bittersweet light out the window and then—
Katie (24:46):
Your dog just barked, I think. I think your dog was like, I heard the word dog, someone said D-O-G, it’s time for me to bark.
Jennifer (24:54):
Should I pause?
Katie (24:55):
No, keep going, this is audio, we like barking dogs.
Jennifer (24:59):
All right. So, the idea though is to find things that you are, that along that way, you pause and look at the last flowers of the season, my echinaceas are still going.
Some other ways to get in the practice of savoring is to take a moment that you’re enjoying and pause and sort of taking an inventory of all your senses. For instance, if you’re out having a latte, catching up with a dear friend, feel the warm cup in your hand, look at the cool heart on the top of the surface, feel the chair you’re in, the comfortable chair, look at your friend’s face, kind of feel in your body how it feels to be so present and connecting with somebody you really care about. You’re sort of taking an inventory of all your senses to really feel in your body how great that moment is. So, using all your senses is super helpful for that.
Bryant also suggests, snap a mental photograph. So, if you’re like at a holiday, perhaps you have a relative coming to see you that hasn’t seen you since COVID. Maybe once they come in the door, you’re greeting them but you’re also taking a mental photograph of this moment, you’re capturing it in your brain, you’re not taking out your phone which is a barrier or screen sometimes to the emotion, but you’re sort of capturing it, you’re composing it so you can remember it and have that full experience.
Katie (26:42):
I did that at my wedding Jen, I did that at my wedding. I remember somebody in my life who’d gotten married a few weeks earlier told me, “It goes so quickly, it’s such a blur, everyone that you love and care about it there and you’re gonna be overwhelmed.” She said to take time to take a mental snapshot and I was like, I don’t even understand that. And I got there and I was like, oh my gosh I feel like I was starring in “This Is Your Life” and it was all the people and it was just so overwhelming. And I remember that I’d been told this and I literally put myself into a timeout in the hallway just for ten minutes to remember what I was experiencing and that’s all that I remember of my wedding, this ten minutes because it was such a wonderful and joyful almost like, assault of the senses. So, that mental snapshot actually does work and I’ve been married for 27 years now and that’s the ten minute slice that I remember from a very joyful event.
Jennifer (27:41):
Well, how wonderful. It sounds like if you hadn’t done that it would have been in your memory basically a blur.
Katie (27:48):
Yes. And it was a blur, it was a total blur, but it was a joyful blur. But that idea, we can use that idea all sorts of ways, we can use it when we’re celebrating this season, you can use it when the ball drops at New Year. You can take a minute to think, "What was so wonderful about 2021? What’s wonderful about what’s happening right now? What am I excited for?" And to take those mental snapshots.
Jennifer (28:14):
And also like, of course, you want to savor the big things like looking around your holiday table and seeing people being reunited, that’s fantastic. But you can also if there’s a special candy you only eat once a year because it’s traditional, you can take your time unwrapping it, you can look at it, you can smell it, you can, you know, eat it very, very slowly. Just totally, wring as much pleasure out of that small tradition as you can and the idea is when we have these positive boosts of emotion, it can help us counterbalance some of the stress, the negativity that the holiday can bring as well. It’s like some pluses in your balance sheet.
Katie (29:08):
Squeeze the joy out of life. I remember when I was very stressed out in my life when my middle son Milo was young and I was nursing him and it felt so amazing to hold him in my arms and feel the weight of his body and I would draw back on that memory during stressful times. To just remind myself of what it felt like to be completely at peace with a beautiful baby in my arms. And I tapped back into that at different times. It was like a self-soothing mechanism. So, I believe in the power of you know, those small moments that you can use to fuel you during the challenging ones.
Jennifer (29:46):
Oh, that’s lovely. You know, Bryant has made the point that you can savor in the future and past, as you’re doing. you’re savoring moments from your past and that’s potent too. You can savor the future which is another word of anticipation but you get extra joy out of anticipating a classic example is, going on vacation. If you spend a month looking at brochures and thinking about what you’re gonna do and you’re just getting those, that big additional chunk of pleasure out of that experience.
Katie (30:24):
Fantastic, so good. Jen, your book says that the power of being happier lies in you which I loved and adored because it gives us agency. But I’m curious, how did writing this book impact your own sense of happiness.
Jennifer (30:39):
That is a good question [both laugh]
Katie (30:42):
Which is why I asked it.
Jennifer (30:44):
Yeah, yeah. I think that I have realized that I have a lot more power over my emotions than I thought. I think historically, I tended to think, well, I’ll be happy when… Fill in the idealized life goal. As soon as X happens, I’ll be happy. And I think that was a fallacy. To wait around until life is perfect for happiness and is stress-free for happiness doesn’t really work. So, I think it’s given me sort of permission to wait till not all systems are go but to realize that every day we have a chance to lift our mood, find some joy and not wait around for all our ducks to be in a row because our ducks are never gonna be in a row.
Katie (31:43):
Never. Life is never perfect. You just raised the point we shouldn’t wait around for our ducks to be in a row in order to choose to be happy. But I would also say, you have to choose to be happy, you really need to claim your joy as an early guest on my show, Zibby Owens, said. That phrase really stuck with me: claim your joy. You are in charge of your own joy. You’re in charge of your own happiness and you need to practice it. And this book has so many wonderful prompts along so many different types of different chapters for incorporating a calmer mind or gratitude or being a good friend to yourself. I’m curious, has your idea of joy changed over time as you’ve aged? It sounds like the process of writing this book has taught you many things, but has aging yourself taught you something new about joy or how to find it and claim it?
Jennifer (32:41):
So, I think one learns to not take those moments of joy for granted. Like, I’ve learned to get better at sorting out what the good things, even during a bad time, are. And being able to do that has given me more resilience in the face of difficult things. For instance, during the pandemic I had my daughter who is 24, lives in New York City, but during the beginning of the pandemic, she flew home because I’m in Indiana, we still had toilet paper, you know. [Katie laughs] And she worked from my dining room table, we worked together from my dining room table for three or four weeks and that was a wonderful positive from a dark time. Even at the time I realized, it’s scary what’s going on, but this thing is good.
This summer we had a big storm, I had a huge tree go through my roof—slate roof, 1929—and I was, you know, horrified. Within a few hours, my kitchen was full of neighbors who were getting me a tree person, bringing food, bringing tea, bringing a big bottle of wine. [both laugh] You know, Mr. Rogers says, “Look for the helpers,” and for me, that ability to see the helpers, see the good in the negative is something I’ve got better at as I age.
Katie (34:32):
I love that. That is such a beautiful story. We are going to wrap on that note and move into our speed round because our time is coming to an end. But I loved hearing that story about all the people in your life who rallied around you.
So, are you up for a quick speed round?
Jennifer (34:48):
Sure.
Katie (34:48):
The way this works is there’s just maybe a one-word, maybe a two-word answer to complete these sentences or finish these thoughts. Okay, so one-word answer. Writing Find Your Joy was _____.
Jennifer (35:01):
Stressful.
Katie (35:02):
[laughs] It’s an honest answer. This holiday ritual sparks joy for me _____.
Jennifer (35:08):
Making New York Times Brickle.
Katie (35:12):
Ooo, yum.
Jennifer (35:14):
It’s that four-ingredient Brickle.
Katie (35:16):
Okay, I’m gonna look that up.
Jennifer (35:17):
It makes it look like you’re a gourmet cook.
Katie (35:19):
Nice, I’m looking it up and putting it into the show notes. [Jennifer laughs] Okay, top self-care practice _____.
Jennifer (35:26):
My animals. I won’t say D-O-G.
Katie (35:30):
Oh D-O-G, [laughs] we’re gonna get more barking.
Jennifer (35:34):
I always know if I’m fraying that I need to step away from my computer and go for a W-A-L-K [Katie laughs] with my D-O-G.
Katie (35:44):
I can’t say the word O-U-T-S-I-D-E without my D-O-G barking so I get that. [Jennifer laughs] All right, most underrated self-care practice _____.
Jennifer (35:55):
Most underrated self-care practice…
Katie (35:57):
And it doesn’t have to be one that you’ve practiced, but it could be one that you’ve covered in your writing that people should know about and get on their screen.
Jennifer (36:05):
I think sleep.
Katie (36:08):
Yes.
Jennifer (36:08):
Getting a good night’s sleep, prioritizing sleep, somebody told me that is the foundation of all self-care.
Katie (36:18):
I agree, okay, love that one. Okay, woo-woo but I love it _____.
Jennifer (36:20):
Woo-woo but I love it… My aromatherapy diffuser.
Katie (36:27):
Nice.
Jennifer (36:28):
And I have lavender for relaxation and eucalyptus when I need my brain to be sparking.
Katie (36:35):
Nice, I love it. Okay on savoring, what was the last thing to delight you?
Jennifer (36:42):
What was the last thing to delight me?… I bought an anxiety blanket which is one of those weighted blankets that is, it’s very comforting in the winter and I love being under it, I feel like I’m in a safe little cave.
Katie (37:03):
We’ve heard good things about those blankets on this show. One of our doctors recommended those for sleep, [Jennifer laughs] seriously, so that makes a lot of sense. Okay finally, the book or podcast that I rely on to help me find joy _____.
Jennifer (37:17):
So, I’m big on re-reading favorite books. They’re kind of like touchstones and I like to, I don’t have a specific book to give you but when I’m feeling like I need comfort I love to read memoirs. I love to read other people’s lives and how they’ve worked them out. That is a joy for me.
Katie (37:44):
Very nice, I love memoirs as well. You get to live in somebody else’s shoes for a day.
Jen, this was really fun. Before we say goodbye, how can our listeners find you and more about your writing and your book?
Jennifer (37:57):
So, I have a website, jenniferkinglindley.com and that has links to some of my articles and a link to my book, a description of my book so that’s probably the best, most immediate way to see my reporting on this subject.
Katie ():
Thank you so much. This was Jennifer King Lindley and Find your Joy: A Powerful Self-Care Journal to Help You Thrive.
This wraps A Certain Age, a show for women who are waging without apology. Join me next Monday when celebrity baker and cookbook author Rosie Daykin comes on to talk holiday celebrations and everyday comfort food.
Special thanks to Michael Mancini who composed and produced our theme music. See you next time, and until then: age boldly, beauties.