Living From Happiness

Jenny Odell is an artist, Stanford prof, and thought leader whose provocative book, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy is the focus of this episode. Odell's book is a provocative take on taking ourselves back. How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention...

Melanie focuses on thoughts and writings from such luminaries as Paula Allen Gunn, Simon Ortiz, Joy Harjo, and Barry Lopez in this episode. Some of the "bad" words touched on are considered unimportant and light-weight and New-Agey, and even worse, often used to...

Katy Butler is an award-winning journalist, public speaker, and bestselling author. She’s a thought leader about end-of-life care in the national movement for medical reform. Her first book was Knocking on Heaven’s Door: The Path to a Better Way of Death and was named...

It seems ridiculous to celebrate anything these days. And yet, we know from all the neuroscience research that celebrating is quite important for our brains. Which means it’s important for our lives. Melanie's inspiration for this episode was a big-little thing that...

Melanie shares ideas, thoughts, and how-tos for easing up on ourselves. The conflict between way too much to do and the desperate desire for rest that so many of us are struggling with makes for a toxic soup of stress and anxiety. She dives into a chapter from the...

The Happiness in Dark Times series this week focuses on some of the ideas from Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear. Curiosity, creativity, joy, lightness, ease, and strength (as in internal fortitude) are all covered in this episode. Melanie includes thoughts from...

Continuing her solo Happiness In Dark Times series, Melanie presents a deep, thoughtful show based on writing by the visionary thought leader Charles Eisenstein. Here's a little bit of part of this episode: "A ceremony, then, is a special kind of ritual. It is a...

Did you know that mindfulness, mindful awareness, and/or contemplative practices don't have to be formal, stick-in-the-mud things? In fact, the more we can bring mindfulness into our everyday lives, the happier, more content, satisfied, and peaceful we are. Listen in...

This is a quiet and intimate show, the first in a series of quiet, contemplative shows with Melanie. She shares some of her own writing, along with insights from thought leaders such as neuropsychologist Dr. Rick Hanson; Vaclav Havel, the great Czechoslovakian...