Welcome to Happified! I’d like to introduce myself. Before I get underway with interviews shared in upcoming episodes, this is a glimpse of who I am and why I’ve picked up the mic. I’m letting you know why I feel it’s so crucial to fine-tune our health habits and improve our perspective on stress now, before they lead to disease and the lifestyle that no one wants. Because really, don’t we want to age better than our parents? Let’s get inspired to choose our health adventure.

If you’d like to connect online + continue the conversation, here is where you’ll find me:

• http://happifiedlife.com
• https://3xlessstress.com
• https://www.facebook.com/3xLessStress/
• https://www.facebook.com/groups/livewlessstress
• https://www.instagram.com/3xlessstress/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/susivine/

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Welcome To Happifie‪d

Hello World! Here is a short introduction to your host and a summary of what you’ll be hearing about here on Happified: who I’ll be bringing to the show and who this show is for – and who it isn’t! Welcome to my musings. I hope they give you some new (and perhaps brighter) perspectives and serve up a healthy dose of inspiration as you move through your day.

Welcome. I’m a holistic health practitioner, wife, stepmom, daughter, and your host on this show. That’s what is fit for print, but let me give you an idea of who I am. I am a wanderer. I’ve lived in most corners of the US, in cities and in small towns. I’ve made my way back to my birthplace in San Diego, California, but I was raised in the heartland in a village called McLean, Illinois. I am a seeker. I wasn’t one of those people who was born with an undeniable vision. Instead, I was blessed to work in a variety of careers, typically with my hands. I still consider myself a shop girl, and I love to use the best tool for the job.

I like to talk straight to get to the heart of the matter, to apply logic to find solutions, while I still believe in magic or miracles or synchronicity, you choose what you call it. I am an optimist. Even if science point to the world spinning out of control, I believe that when we unite in a common vision, we can find solutions. I believe in creative problem solving, and I love creating a product that is greater than the sum of its parts. I arrive in this place where I am, not by the most direct route, but by concentric circles, honing in on the right place and the right time to make the change that I believe I am here to create.

While I’ve lived in cities around the country, I have discovered that people have the same desires, doubts and dreams. My first career in technical theater, painting sets and building hand props was curved when I started experiencing chemical sensitivities to the products that we use to create that theater magic. It was no surprise since I had seen coworkers develop allergies and sensitivities over the years. It brought home an awareness of how the products we use, whether at work or in our own homes, set the stage for physical disease. This information is only becoming widely known. It’s an important topic that we’ll be exploring in our journey to clear the way for happiness mentally, physically, and in the places where we spend our lives.

I wandered after leaving theater, redefining myself, seeking the purpose that I am here to fulfill. Ultimately, life served up another important lesson that had to be lived to be learned. I found myself working in an industry that I didn’t even know existed. I became a Senior Move Manager, managing moves for seniors. As I helped my clients, typically in their 80s and 90s, downsize from their family homes and transition into a smaller home or retirement community, I was grateful that I could ease this process. I loved their stories. The greatest generation is an independent one, practical and proud, much like the Midwestern culture I was raised in. The reasons they had to make these moves often break my heart. They may have been facing serious health issues that led to the loss of their independence or the loss of a spouse. In some cases, one client was suffering from dementia and their partner would move with them so they could merely be down the hall from the Memory Care Unit, rather than across town.

This wasn’t a move that they wanted to make, but circumstances forced this transition, and they felt they were giving up their independence. Seeing these situations play out hundreds of times, I couldn’t escape that I and we want more when we get to that phase of our lives. We want to have choices in how we live, how we remain engaged and active throughout our years, and how we want to maintain our independence for as long as we possibly can. Selfishly, I changed my focus from helping them to helping myself and others in my generation. These days, Gen X has moved into the sandwich generation spot. We have kids in school or just emerging, to a future that is less certain than ever before, even that it was when we all graduated from college in the ‘90s.

We have parents who are beginning to suffer the health issues that I’ve already watched unfold. We now understand that our genetics lay the foundation of our health, but we also are learning that epigenetics affect how those genetic predispositions play out. We know more about nutrition and mindset and neuroplasticity than ever before, so we have hope that we can write our own health stories. At the same time, we are bombarded with information that is confusing, contradictory and skewed to support subjective opinions, rather than allowing us to make up our own minds as to what is best for our own bodies. What can I do about all of that? I’m not going quietly. I’m getting to work right now on a future that I’m going to enjoy living in. I am about being straightforward and getting to the heart of the matter. I don’t need the fluffy stuff. I don’t have time for it, and I know that you don’t either.

I am about connection, connecting the dots, connecting to community, connecting to purpose. Our passion, if we have one, and curiosity at minimum, but above and beyond all else, purpose. I’m going to let you in on a little secret here. If you have trouble finding happiness, try creating more purpose in your life by supporting a cause, a group, an effort that you truly believe in. Give to yourself to advance a purpose that you are passionate about and you will yield incredible returns. I am about keeping it light. I believe in bringing in levity, humor, and leading with love. I have no room for fear. I will not buy into the scare tactics that cordon us off into us versus them, or think that questions are as simple as right versus wrong. We have more in common with our enemies than we think. There are a lot more correct answers in the range between yes and no than many of us care to admit. I’m okay with exploring the gray areas.

I am about choosing positivity, hope and happiness. Our brains are wired to seek happiness. Happiness didn’t save us from the tiger that was hiding in the bush, fear did. We have come a long way, and we can upgrade our reactions, and we can cultivate a mindset of happiness. I’d love for you to give it a try with me. You might find it’s the best investment of attention and energy that you’ve made in a long time. What will the show be about? Are you going to have to read to a lot of these mental musings? Don’t be afraid, I’ve got some good things in store. This show is about choosing flow over getting mired down by stress. A lot of stress is mindset. Do we let it weaken us or inspire us? We do get to choose. We’ll explore how little things add up. Little painless stressors add up without notice, but that doesn’t mean they don’t matter, and it doesn’t mean that we have to let them.

We’re affected by physical, emotional and environmental stressors throughout our lives, and sometimes we don’t recognize the load they add to the stress we carry in these Western lifestyles that we live. It’s time to put down those loads and take a look to see what we can clear from our lives, by cleaning up some dirty habits, cleaning out some common culprits from our homes, and tweaking some habits to encourage more physical balance and emotional resilience. You see the little habit upgrades add up to big course corrections down the line. This might start off slow, but once it’s underway, you’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish and how good you’re going to feel. Happified is about discovering what we can be doing right now to pave the way to enjoy more choices later. By shifting the actions that we perform unconsciously, we create mental and physical benefit from learning new things, building new neural pathways, and by simply doing more things that make us feel good and less of the things that undermine our health and happiness and steal our time.

I’ll be talking with thought leaders and change makers in the areas of health, mindset and wellbeing. If you or someone you know is making an impact in any of those areas, I would love to hear about it. This show is for people who want to feel empowered to maintain their health by avoiding causes of disease. This show is for people who think they’re too busy to sift through the confusing information about what is truly healthy. We’ll look at trustworthy sources and research, and find out what is hype and what is worth exploring to see if it’s a practice that will work for you. This show is for people who choose positivity over negativity, and especially for the people who struggle to make that choice and keep coming back to it even when it is a struggle.

It’s for people who recognize that momentum can be a more powerful force than inertia, and that leading with love makes room for everyone at the table, while responding from fear leaves us isolated, stuck in our miserable emotions and more prone to disease. Who is this not for? This show is not for those who like to cherry pick their science and seek out facts because it feels good to prove people wrong. If you want to prove that God doesn’t exist, that homeopathy is a scam, and that energy healing has no validity, there are plenty of other shows to listen to, to validate those opinions. I’d still love to chat with you over a beer sometime, but I’m not going to curb the exploration of Happified and these episodes based on a selective view of “safe science,” or believe the stories that lobbyists and corporate interests are selling.

I believe we can create enough food to feed the world, especially if we reduce our consumption of meat. I believe that pharmaceutical companies don’t want us to know how powerfully we can manage our own health with natural solutions including herbs, whole foods, and clean air and water. I believe there are systems in place that want us to remain ignorant as consumers. Until we begin to ask questions and educate ourselves and start voting with our consumer dollars, they will continue to believe that they have us all fooled. This show isn’t for people who think that the choices they are making right now won’t be affecting them later. Be it later today, this year or later in life, everything that we do sets the stage for our resilience and vitality while we’re young and they are strong enough to outlast what we throw at them.

As we age, if we haven’t built up resources in the bank, we quickly find out how invaluable our innate ability to heal ourselves and thrive. The pursuit of those two fundamental rights may not be easy, but it may be simpler and more straightforward than you believe. However, without our active participation, no one else will ever solve them for us. Let me make this disclaimer, there is a large and even growing number of people who are affected by circumstances that make their emotions feel uncontrollable. I am not here to say that lifestyle and mental shifts are all that are needed to find happiness. For some, and maybe even most of us, that can be the case, but for many, it is simply not. If this is you, then I don’t want this show to make you feel like you’re not trying hard enough. There are licensed and credentialed practitioners who can support you in your journey. I hope you won’t give up on me and what I’m sharing here, because I deeply believe that there are factors that are impacting the mental health of our society that few people are looking at yet.

While someone with more initials after their name can help you do the heavy lifting, I would love to help you clean up your home and your diet, and help you get motivated to get active so that what they’re doing can work even more effectively until you might find that you are the happy person that you wish to be, creating the life story that lights you up again, or even for the first time. If you think that there is so much left to explore in the world and you love connecting the dots, welcome. If you want to learn about different health modalities, nutrition concepts or ways we can and maximize our mental potential and emotional wellbeing, I’m happy to have you along for the ride. If you have questions you want answered, I invite you to contact me through the show’s website, HappifiedLife.com.

I also welcome your feedback because I truly want this show to foster a community. Now more than ever, we need to be connected and to lift each other up. New episodes will be released weekly. Most episodes will be interviews because I love to learn new things just as much as you do. Occasionally, I’ll publish a solo episode when I want to dig in to one of my personal passions relating to stress, emotions, or other things I’m wondering about, and I suspect that you may be too. I’ll try to keep them short and digestible because I know that you’re busy, and I’m not here to add to the overwhelm. If you’ve made it this far, then I hope you’ll be finding me here again. I’m happy to meet you. Thank you for sharing with me a precious gift, your time. I promise I won’t take it for granted. Until next time, I am wishing you health and happiness.

Important Links:

• https://www.Facebook.com/3xLessStress/
• https://www.Facebook.com/groups/livewlessstress
• https://www.Instagram.com/3xlessstress/
• https://www.LinkedIn.com/in/susivine/