Are you an alienated parent struggling with ambiguous loss while telling yourself "I'll be happy when..."? In this episode, life coach Shelby Milford dives deep into the science of happiness, revealing how alienated parents can reclaim joy—even in the midst of grief and uncertainty. Discover research-backed strategies, personal stories, and practical tools to raise your happiness set point and find meaning after parental alienation. Don’t let estrangement define your future—learn how to heal and thrive, starting today.

 

Main Talking Points

• The unique grief of alienated parents: ambiguous loss and “frozen grief”
• The science behind the “happiness set point” and how it applies to parents facing parental alienation
• How ambiguous loss can lower your happiness baseline—and why naming your experience is the first step to healing
• Research-backed strategies for raising your happiness set point: gratitude, mindfulness, social connection, and intentional activities
• The six resilience guidelines for alienated parents, including finding meaning, adjusting mastery, and discovering new hope
• The power of micro-joys, savoring small moments, and post-traumatic growth after estrangement

 

Notable Quotes

• “Alienation is a perfect example of ambiguous loss—there’s no protocol, no casseroles, and no cards, but the grief is real.”
• “Research shows that while sorrow may be permanent, it doesn’t have to permanently depress your happiness set point.”
• “You can intentionally raise your happiness set point to higher than it ever was prior to alienation.”
• “Naming your experience as ambiguous loss is the first step toward healing for alienated parents.”
• “The quality of your relationships—even micro-connections—outperforms genes and social class in predicting happiness.”

 

Key Takeaways

• Ambiguous loss from parental alienation creates a unique, ongoing grief that can lower your happiness set point—but it’s possible to rebuild.
• Naming and understanding ambiguous loss is essential for alienated parents to begin the healing process.
• Research shows that 40–50% of your happiness is within your control through intentional activities, even after estrangement.
• Gratitude, mindfulness, social connection, and acts of kindness are proven ways to boost happiness for alienated parents.
• Post-traumatic growth is possible: alienated parents can develop greater appreciation, resilience, and meaning after loss.
• Alienation does not have to define your life—your happiness set point can be raised, and you can thrive despite ongoing uncertainty.

 

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Episode Transcript

 

  You are listening to the Beyond The High Road Podcast with Shelby Milford, episode number 166. Stay tuned.  Welcome to Beyond the High Road, a podcast dedicated to healing your heart and life following the grief of alienation. I'm your host, Shelby Milford, a twice certified life coach specializing in post-traumatic growth. If you're experiencing the effects of alienation and you're ready to heal, then this show is my love letter to you.

Stay tuned.

  📍 📍 Well, hi. How are we doing today? So today we're gonna be talking about you're happiness set point. This is a topic that I've been planning for since this summer, like the end of the summer, maybe August. Um, and it's finally here today. So. I'm gonna read you my little spiel that I wrote a little earlier, and then we will get into the episode, just the little intro that I have here.

So as an alienated parent, you know, I'm sure the ache of standing on the outside, looking in at your own child's life as everyone else expects you to just move on. In the beginning you probably wondered if you're the only one who wakes up with an emptiness that words can't capture. Maybe you were convinced that you were the only parent who mourned a child had lost while they were just miles away from your home.

That's what I was like. I was convinced I was the only one. no words to actually describe the pain you were feeling and no defined grieving protocol to follow, like I was talking about in last week's episode, right? Week after week, y'all show up to listen because together we're walking this invisible road through loss and ambiguous grief.

Today we're opening up the science on happiness. Yes. Even here because your ability to feel joy did not end the day that your relationship with your child changed. We'll dig into why your happiness setpoint feels out of reach. How ambiguous loss makes healing, especially tough.

And what the latest research says about reclaiming your wellbeing even in the longest seasons of quote unquote waiting, you are not alone, you're not broken. And there are real strategies for finding a new kind of meaning and joy, right in the thick of all this uncertainty. So let's get into it.

 , alright, so my first introduction ever to the Science of Happiness was. Back in Texas with a friend of mine named David. I don't remember who I was talking with this about like somewhat recently.

I don't know if it was on the podcast or if it was with one of my clients, but anyway, so one of my friends is the head of the philanthropy department at University of Texas. And back when, I think it was right after the last court hearing, either it was the last one or the second to last one. 

I was in a lot of pain at that time,  it was at the point where it must have been right after the last one because. I didn't think that I had anywhere else to turn,  I was at the bottom of the bottom.

You know, like I couldn't go any further. In my mind, the world was really dark and I was so desperate to make something of the whole situation at that time, I didn't wanna accept that this is where I was.  I needed to make meaning out of it.  And so I wanted to start this nonprofit for kids, kids who were being alienated from their parents.

And I got in contact with my friend Dave, I figured he would know what my next steps were as far as. Making this 5 0 1 3, he invited me to lunch. We went to the UT Club , sat down, and I remember feeling I was already in like a pretty big stress response because I knew I was gonna have to broach the subject.

Regarding what was going on with me, and I was still in that place where it was felt so embarrassing and I wa you know, I hadn't done all the work that I today have. And so I knew that in order to get to my point of the foundation that I was getting ready to start, I needed to give him my backstory.

And so once I started to.

Put it all together in words for him. He stopped me and he asked me, posed a question to me. And I know that looking back on it, and maybe I knew back then that when he posed that question, he wasn't wanting an answer for himself, but more, I think he was trying to help me.

to gain some awareness around what was going on with me, right? He said something to the effect of most of the people that he hears about, starting a foundation or doing anything with grief or immense pain that they've gone through.

They are the most successful when they have gotten through the pain and the darkness and to the other side, and they're standing on top of the mountain as opposed to being in the valley. Right? And he said, have you gotten to the point where you're looking back on all this and I can remember feeling it wasn't his fault, but I remember feeling like devastated in that moment and embarrassed there was a lot of shame that was going on. Again, it wasn't him that did it the way that he posed the question was very, uh, friendly, loving, however, you know,

so when he asked the question, that's when I realized that I was nowhere near even close.  I knew that I had my work cut out for me and I knew that I had to sit with this pain and that didn't seem fun for me at all.

I didn't even know where to start. You know? I thought it would be much easier to help other people and I think that that's why so many of us are in the boat that we're in is because we were always directing our attention outward and not.

Letting, allowing for whatever's going on with us to be, you know. But anyway, that's besides the point.  So that was needless to say, that was the last, he and I spoke about my nonprofit, right.

Instead, I decided to switch the subject out of probably immense embarrassment, , to ask him about the classes he teaches and so on and so forth. And so  he then told me that he teaches this class, the Science of Happiness. Um, and I was like,  what? The science of happiness. That sounds crazy to me. It sounded ridiculous  at that point I thought the world was super dark.

You know, I saw the world as a really hostile place to the point, where like, if I saw a pregnant woman walk past me, I would judge her and think, what a terrible thing. Why would she bring a baby into this awful dark world?

It's a terrible time to do, you know, I was just, I was in a place, everything I saw was dark and people were evil and out for, , their own selves.

The world was just not a safe place in my mind back then. Okay. But I was. Truly intrigued

by him... by the fact that he taught this class about the science of happiness and also about the, the philanthropy, right? I thought how interesting. There was something just so magnetic about him. And so we had been introduced through friends,

We started to get together, now and then to run trails. One of them was right behind his house in Austin. Austin has great technical running trails and so we would go running together on these trails and I kept asking him, I was fascinated by the fact that people would pay money university type money to take a class about the science of happiness.

I thought it was crazy. It was like basket weaving to me. It was like it didn't make sense, you know? But that's the first time I was ever introduced to the science of happiness. And so I learned a little bit from him about where it started, what it's about, and there's actually a lot more entailed in it than I once thought.

So that's what I'll give you about that. But I, I guess the reason why I wanted to tell you that little story is because I know that for most people  the idea of studying happiness sounds absolutely ridiculous and almost frivolous. Especially coming from,

from what we have.  So just know that I've been there too. I was very skeptical about this. Um, but In a few minutes, I'm I'm gonna lay out some information for you some empirical evidence from studies starting in 1971, which is when the study, the science of Happiness began and all the way through.

But first I want to say that if you guys. I even mentioned it last week in, um, in many of the other episodes. You guys know my thoughts about the term happiness. It's different for each of us, right? Our interpretations, but in my definition, you can define it however you want.

Happiness is just this state of mind or this idea that we know that we're on the path that we wanna be on, right? That we're going in the quote unquote right direction. The language that I usually use is like your frequency or your energetic level, like your energetic set point, you know? Um, but they're pretty much interchangeable. It's just that in psychology, the empirical evidence lies in the language. Being your happiness set point. Okay, so when I am using happiness set point today, you can also interchange that with like your emotional guidance scale a vibrational set point, anything like that. 

It's just a typical emotional band that you live within. Okay? Like for instance, some people will land in between. Worry and boredom. And some people their set point will be between contentment and appreciation or between anxiety and

anger maybe.  📍 📍 📍 📍 also the way that maybe you've heard me talk about it, but what I bring my clients through, is I ask them to lay out for me and like usually one of the first few sessions. What are their current top emotions?

Not top like chosen. Well, they are chosen, but like not desired emotions, but what are the most frequent emotions they feel on an everyday basis? Right. Or in the last week, what are the most common emotions that you feel? And then after they go through some questioning,   📍 then I ask them, what are the three, top three, the emotions that you want to feel like your desired emotions? 

And so that helps us to determine like right in the beginning where they are as far as their emotional band. Okay. So just know that when we're talking about the happiness set point,  It's just a baseline state that you adapt to.

 I just wanted to put that out there now for you guys so that it wasn't confusing, my message wasn't confusing, um, compared to some of the other episodes where I do talk about what my definition of happiness is.

Okay? So it's all kind of interchangeable. This is just where the empirical evidence, lies. Okay?

So back in 1971, there was a concept, actually it was a theory that was proposed by two guys, Brickman and Campbell. One was a Canadian, one was an American, they coined the term hedonic treadmill in a paper they wrote. Hedonic treadmill is also sometimes known as hedonic adaptation. They're one and the same.  📍 📍 📍 Their thesis proposed that humans quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes. 

Much like sensory adaptation, where if you walk into a room and you smell something, whether that's good or bad, or whatever, whatever the smell is, um, after a little bit of time. What's coming to me right now is like, have you ever walked into somebody's house And it really smells, but they don't seem to be bothered.

But that's because they have just over time adapted to that smell and that smell becomes normal to them. This is what, back in 1971, these two guys their theory was that happiness, or your emotional happiness set point is. Fixed and we can have something happen outside of us and we can go up or down,

higher frequency or lower frequency, happier or less happy, but eventually we'll return back to that baseline. That was their theory. That was the first

major or documented. research study on happiness.   📍 📍 📍 Then one of those guys went on to do the landmark lottery study. This one was done in 1978, and this study compared the self-reported happiness levels of recent lottery winners, right? they came into some money. There were recently paraplegic or quadriplegic accident victims, and then there was a control group.

The major findings of that study is after one year, I believe they found that the people that won the lotteries were not significantly happier overall than the control group. Okay. And they actually, the lottery winners took less pleasure

from the daily mundane events than the other two groups. Okay? The control group and the accident victims. Paraplegics were only modestly less happy than their neighbors, than either of the other groups. But they still scored above the midpoint on the happiness scale, and were expected to return to the similar happiness levels as the control group within a few years.

So What I'm saying is, within a year's time, all of them basically returned back to their set point. Okay. And what was interesting to me is that those that won the lottery found less joy or happiness

when they were conversing with friends or getting a phone call from somebody or doing the little things, that caused most people, little micro joys. Micro moments of joy., They weren't nearly as entertained with the little things I guess because of that spike of winning the lottery, it's kind of like, um, the, what's coming to me right now is like, um, you hear about drug addicts.

 Those who have just gotten over an addiction, their serotonin levels are dysregulated.. it takes a bigger jolt for them to experience the highs, right? Because they have already experienced such extreme highs that nothing really compares to that until their brain re regulates. That's kind of what I think about with this one study.

The whole point of that is that both groups demonstrated that people adapt to both good and bad circumstances more completely than intuition might suggest.  📍 📍

Twin Study

📍 Then in 1996, there was a twin study that there was a thousand sets of twins that were followed for over a 10 year period. , The study concluded that approximately 50% of happiness levels are determined by genetics.

50% of everybody's happiness levels , we're predisposed to it.

This study and this finding actually established the set point theory. The idea that each person has a genetically influenced baseline around which their happiness fluctuates.

Beyond The Hedonic Treadmill

 So then in 2006. There was a, a paper that was written it was called, beyond the hedonic treadmill. And it was proposing five revisions to the original model.

One: different set points.

people have different baseline happiness levels.

They're not all the same. It's not all one set neutral point.

Two: Multiple set points.

People can have different baselines for different components of wellbeing. So if you an area of like work life or an area of social, romantic, whatever, you can have multiple set points. Okay?

Three: set points can change

under some circumstances, set points can shift permanently.

Four: individual adaptation rates.

People differ in how quickly they adapt to life changes.

I think that we all kind of know this. Everybody's a little bit different in how they process information, what, things set them back You know, everybody's different.. And then

five: asymmetric adaptation.

Basically that people adapt differently to positive versus negative events. Adaptation to negative events is often slower and less complete.   📍 📍 This research offered the idea that creating a happier society is not just doomed by only one set point. Okay. And it's, you're always gonna return to this, to whatever baseline. And that baseline is the same for everybody, which was a very basic model.  

The 40% Solution: Lyubomirsky’s Sustainable Happiness Model

Right around the same time, in the 2000's, early two thousands, there was a lady named   Sonja Lyubomirsky. Um, it's, I'm probably saying that wrong, but . She did research that proposed a pie chart model of happiness determinants. she maintains that your genetic background was responsible for 50% of your happiness. She then said that life circumstances, things that happen outside of you are responsible for 10%, 10% not much. And if you work with me, then you know that circumstances actually are neutral and can't really cause any of it.

But let's just leave it as it is 'cause this is our research. Okay? Then the amazing news, the solution news is that intentional activities were responsible for the remaining 40% intentional activities are what is responsible for 40% of your happiness. So this framework became foundational in positive psychology, suggesting that

While we cannot change our genes, nearly half of our happiness is within our control, through deliberate daily choices and behaviors.  And I would propose that the life circumstances, that other 10% is also a non issue, or it's not even relevant because life circumstances actually don't need to determine anything for you.

It's the way that you think about them, So that 10% In my mind, I say 50% genetic 50% intentional activities and how you choose to think about things, which is fucking amazing news if you think about it. So you can rewire your brain.

The whole takeaway from all of what I just said is that...neuroplasticity, right? You can rewire your brain to have any set point really that you like. With that other 50%, you can rewire your brain to have a lower set point and feel less happy or a higher set point and be more happy by what you choose to see by your perceptions.

Of course, as you guys know what I preach in each and every episode. 

I think is it HEBB that originally, I think back in the fifties, that neurons that fire together wire together? I think it was him neuroscientists that, propose that we can rewire our brains to achieve whatever, Mental emotional status we want to have.

And so we can train ourselves to, to see the things that are beautiful in the world. And we can also train our brains to see all the icky, nasty things. Kind of like how I was, and the, you know, whenever I'm was hanging out with my friend Dave, the professor. So then most recent and between 2019 and 2025, Lupe Murky, Sonya Luki, the one that's responsible for the sustainable happiness model, right? The 40% of intentional activities, she revisited that model. She was acknowledging some valid critiques of the original pie chart while maintaining that subsequent research has supported the most important premise, namely that individuals can boost their wellbeing via their intentional behaviors and maintain that boost in the longer term.

Meaning that you're not just thinking for a certain way, thinking happy thoughts will only get you happy for a short period of time, and you're gonna. Go right back to . Whatever your baseline is at a less happy spot. She's saying that you can sustain that for longer periods of time, in fact, indefinitely.

 so then the 2025 World Happiness Report emphasizes that belief in others' kindness and social connection are now recognized as even stronger predictors of happiness than previously understood. 

. Trust in community kindness was found to be twice as related to happiness as employment status. so you could be broke. Out of a job. But if you trusted and the kindness that is within those around you, it's found to be twice as, influential to your happiness. 

So that's good news. Now we just, those of you who are still in the ho hum and, woe was me, and the world is dark and everybody's awful place, that's where maybe if there's a gap there for you, that's where your focus can be if you're ready for it. Now, I wanna say that now because. I as you guys, if you've been listening for a while, you know, but if you're a first time listener, please know that I am not suggesting that you, if you're smack in the middle of acute grief, like I was mentioning earlier, that you just sh shift over and try to find all the ways that you can be happy today and forget about all your grief and just be happy.

I'm not saying that, okay.    It's just that depending on what you choose to see, where you put your intention, your focus, that is going to determine your experience. And if you pile all of those experiences up with intentional perceptions of your world, like, is this helping me or harming me? If you choose to go to the helpful place more, then it's going to bump up your, your. Happiness set point over time. All right,

 

so  here's where our challenge comes in. So now we're going into  

Part Two: Ambiguous Grief

Dr. , Pauline boss, she was a professor at University of Minnesota, coined the termed ambiguous loss in the 1970s to describe the loss that remains unclear and has no resolution. 

Right? Unlike death, which allows for funerals, rituals, like I was just referencing last week, and community support. Ambiguous loss freezes the grief process and can continue for a lifetime. Okay? Can continue for a lifetime. I emphasize the can. Um, so there are two types of ambiguous loss.   Type one is the physical absence with psychological presence, right?

This is when a loved one is physically missing or not present, but remains psychologically present in our minds, In our hearts. Examples include kidnapping, immigration, adoption, family, estrangement or alienation. ,  I put in the alienation here because of course alienation isn't mentioned in most publications.  

type two is psychological absence with physical presence such as with dementia, addiction, mental illness.  

 Why this matters for us?

Alienation is a perfect example of ambiguous loss, like I was just kind of explaining as we discussed last week, when we lose someone to death, there's support coming from all angles, right? Everybody's there for us, bringing casseroles, sending cards, offering to be there for us, sit with us. But we have no contact with our children, it's crickets many times . You might even be blamed for it. I mean, you're definitely being blamed for it by the alienating parent, but maybe also your, what you thought was your support group. Okay? The grief is real, but there are no rituals to mark it. There are no casseroles or no bereavement cards.

There's no protocol for how to move through this ongoing loss, This type of grief is sometimes called frozen grief, for obvious reasons. Because the uncertainty prevents the natural progression through mourning.  This lack of closure doesn't just cause sadness, it creates chronic sorrow, okay? Defined as the periodic recurrence of permanent pervasive sadness associated with ongoing disparity resulting from a loss experience.

Why ambiguous grief threatens the happiness set point. So boss, the lady that I was just referencing here from University of Minnesota, she suggested "ambiguous loss poses particular threats to wellbeing because..."  I'm quoting this particular threats to wellbeing because "...the stressful situation cannot be resolved", right?

The chronic nature of this grief can keep the grieving parent US stuck below our natural happiness baseline for extended periods. and then also can prevent the adaptation process that normally allows people to return to their set point, like I was mentioning in the hedonic, adaptation or treadmill, right? it also can create what researchers call the endless waiting that freezes the oscillation between hope and acceptance. Okay? I did an episode on that. I'll link it below, but I think it was called something like, why Ignoring your Grief sometimes is the best answer or something. I'll link it below. it freezes the oscillation because you're, you're waiting, you're like,  I'll be happy when I'll be happy when I can't be happy the rest of my years.

I'll never feel joy again. Not until my kid comes back into my life or whatever you might be saying.  . So it causes the happiness set point, to lower, neurons that fire together, wire together and whatever we put our minds to, whatever we're focusing on over and over repeatedly, whether it's that we're anchor anchoring ourselves to our past thinking about how things used to be, or if we're thinking about how bad things are now, either way, you are lowering your set point over and over if you're thinking those thoughts every day, all the time.

So then now your set point is, down in the dumps. your happiness your ability to feel it is, low, if not non-existent.  The key point for everything I just said is the hedonic treadmill. Research shows people typically adapt to major losses, but ambiguous loss is the except. We're the exception to the rule, as I tell you all the time, that we don't need to be. But because there's no clear event to adapt to, the grief keeps resurfacing with each trigger or reminder.  so now at

Part Three: The Bridge, How Understanding Changes Everything

Here's what makes ambiguous grief particularly cruel in light of the happiness research, the brain is designed to adapt, but it can only adapt to what it understands.

Research shows that people cannot cope with a problem until they know what it is. By naming the experience as ambiguous loss. Like I know that it's out there now. Like many people have that language, many parents. I, you know, I see in the Facebook groups and stuff like that, that this is a term that now has been out for a while, and I think it's become maybe not common knowledge for us as alienated parents, but it's, we're getting there, you know?

But by naming the experiences at Ambiguous Loss, we can finally begin the coping process. Being able to name it, oh, this is what this is. Where I know  most of us didn't have the name alienation, you know, we didn't know what, what we were experiencing.

To me, it was this twilight's own fucking lifetime original movie craziness where I could not see my own kid, and there was this stepmother in between us, blocking us, and accusing me, and creating this soap opera, opera like Jerry Springer sort of environment for myself and . More importantly, my kiddo.

Then back when I didn't understand what the fuck was going on, all I had was, and I'm sure with you too, just traumatic experience, toppled on traumatic experience over and over and over. And that's why I think that so many of us get so jumbled up when we're talking with other people or trying to explain a series of events like it all starts to just get meshed together trauma fog, you know, that we all have because we have no words for it. Our children have no words for it. Probably most of you, even at current, they have no words for it. I don't mean to make that, um, instill any sort of fear in you right now, but it's, the truth. When we have words for it, we can finally begin the process of healing.

this is the first step towards potentially raising your happiness set point, despite the ongoing uncertainty of your situation with your kiddos. So once you have the words for it and you keep reminding your nervous system of that, especially in the acute phase of your grief in the beginning, , it's when you can find your footing. Like, uh, I'm thinking about me running track and having that start point where I put my, what are they called? Uh, where you put your feet, the pedals that you put your feet on before you go. Those pedals are like, what do you think it is? In my mind, it's like, okay, we now we've got the foundation.

I can name my experience and keep reminding my body. In fact, y'all, there are times where I still name that to myself, like, Hey, this is grief. It's okay. we're experiencing grief, and we just had another wave. It's all right. , I sometimes need to spell it out because when we're in a trauma response, you know, most of the time it's a whirlwind, like a cyclone tornado and we're like swept away with it.

And so when we're able to stop and name it, you can interrupt the pattern.  📍 📍 📍 📍 there's the theory of chronic sorrow, I'm gonna give you just a few pointers on this. Chronic sorrow is normal. It's not pathological. Ba basically what I'm saying here is you're not crazy, or what this theory is saying It's cyclical, not linear. As you probably know with grief, quote unquote, triggers are predictable.

And can be anticipated many times, right? Like anniversaries, holidays, milestones. now, This is a theory that was developed by, people that were probably, were not experiencing alienation with us. Of course, other quote unquote triggers, activations can happen with everyday things, you know, and just pop up all of a sudden.

So there's that. Okay? Being aware of that. Reminding yourself that in the, when it's happening, like you see a little girl walking by you, that sounds, yesterday I was walking out of a store and I heard a little baby cough. And the cough. I mean, I guess for, and I was thinking about this afterwards.

Many people would say A baby's cough all sounds the same, but I don't think that they do. And that cough sounded so similar to my daughter's cough. Not that she was coughing a lot, but it just, it sounded like her, And it was like, oh, And my stomach did some swirls and I got tight in my throat and in my chest, got a little tired afterwards that all of that happened.

It was not predictable. But I reminded myself in the moment, this is normal. This is grief, i've had a lot of. moments lately? Well, not a lot, but several. No, I would say quite a bit. And I don't know if maybe if it's for me, if it's just because we're around the holidays, not every holiday's like that.

Maybe I'm open to processing more now, like I was talking about last week. But I've been thinking about her a lot and dreaming about her a lot, , when she was little and then also now, so just, as I'm saying that, just know too that a lot of our stuff is not predictable.

Um, and chronic sorrow, people have both internal coping strategies and can benefit from external support. Okay, so you can utilize and build on those internal abilities like, thought work, breath work, things that you can do for yourself and yourself.

Contained little environment of you, also we can benefit from the help of others,  When combined with happiness research, this suggests that while sorrow may be permanent, it doesn't have to permanently depress your overall happiness set point. The key lies in the intentional activities. I wanna say that part again. While sorrow, grief may be permanent or may be around forever, because even if, let's say your kid comes back to you and y'all, reignite your relationship, everything's back to, let's say, perfect, you feel like you're so connected and you're, communicating on, you know, a regular basis and all that. You still will probably have, hold grief for a long period of time about the years or the amount of time that you did miss the milestones and all that sort of stuff. There was a period of time where you either were in no contact or the contact was, , stressed, the connection was somewhat severed, so you still might hold the grief for that, even though things were fine anyway. So even though sorrow or grief may be permanent, it doesn't have to permanently depress your overall happiness set point.  You can be in the middle of grief and also raise the bar for your happiness set point the defining factor is, or would like the lever that you can pull here to raise it all is your intentional activities.   📍 📍 📍 📍 📍 part four.

So Boss developed six guidelines. To build resilience, despite ambiguous loss. . I'm gonna go through these really quickly with you. And then, I'm gonna go into what I 📍 📍 think.

  📍 📍 Number 📍 one is finding meaning, making sense of what is happening by naming it his ambiguous loss, practicing a both and thinking rather than either or. Black, white. So for us as eliminated parents or estranged parents, some of you. Um, my child is both here in my heart and in my mind, and also not present in my daily life. current life. acknowledge both with an. Another one could be, I am grieving and I'm finding moments of joy. Okay, this relationship is painful and I'm growing. Okay. I cannot control this outcome and I can control my response. Those are some, both ands.   📍 📍 number 📍 two is adjusting mastery, except that some things are beyond our control, while identifying what is within your control.

Kind of like the last example I just gave you. You cannot force reconciliation, but you can control how you respond. You can also control how you see it. What is reconciliation? You can even question that. Does that mean that we have to actually connect, like, uh, physically communicate

or can I reconcile within my own mind? You know, the answer to that is absolutely a hundred percent. And in fact, would offer that you would reconcile in your own mind way before the actual , physical reconciliation ever happens. Okay? Alright. 

📍 📍 Number three, reconstructing your identity. Who am I now that this relationship has changed? This is essential work. Moving from I am a parent who failed to, I'm a person navigating something profoundly difficult.

Okay?   📍 📍 . Four is normalizing ambivalence. It's normal to feel love and anger, hope and despair all at once. These mixed emotions are not weakness. There are appropriate responses to an ambiguous situation. Appropriate. It's appropriate discomfort and maybe comfort all at the same time. Um,   📍 📍 number five is revising attachment.

This does not mean letting go, but rather finding new ways to hold the relationship psychologically. While living in the present reality. 

📍 📍 number six is discovering new hope. this is, again, remember that this is boss's six guidelines. Okay? Mm. With my examples, of course. Um, discovering new hope, a meaningful life can emerge without closure. New hopes and dreams can develop when you increase your tolerance for ambiguity.

You can increase your tolerance for all of it. ,  📍 📍 📍 📍 📍 All right, now I'm gonna give you some evidence-based happiness interventions, practices that you can do.

there's really strong evidence to support that gratitude practices. And I know we just came off last week when I was telling you that. Gratitude lists are not my first go-to, not if it's forced. But if you are open to it, finding things, renewing your contract is how I put it last week.

With the things that are currently in your life, life as is. How are you in love with those things? How can you renew your love with those things? Writing down three good things daily for just one week can increase your happiness for up to six months. Just writing down three good things a day

for just one week. and that will last you for six months. It's like in the bank, okay? Imagine if you did that for all the weeks in a row. For six months. How long would you have for you guys?

Somebody did a math on that. It'd be a long time. You know, 2025 meta-analysis, uh, synthesizing 145 studies across 28 countries confirms gratitude interventions result in reliable increases in wellbeing. They're most effective when practice consistently and with specificity.

I always talk about that with my clients. 📍 📍 📍 And with y'all too, be very specific with what it is that you want, where you're going, and also what's currently going on. . 'Cause if you're vague, your brain will throw it out. Okay? Alright.  📍 📍 📍 📍 📍 📍

📍 Mindfulness and meditation. Also strong evidence to support there's research at University of Wisconsin that demonstrates that meditation practices can change your brain structure and function, particularly in areas associated with emotional regulation.

Even short term practice, two to eight weeks shows measurable changes in wellbeing in gene expression. so there are four trainable components to it. Awareness, connection, insight, and purpose. Did I ever tell you guys? I think I did a long time ago that I went to the, to, my mom was into tm transcendental meditation, and so I then of course was into TMS as a kid.

And so I went to, for, I guess a little over a year or something like that. I don't remember how long it was I lived in Fairfield, Iowa, where I went to Maharishi school for tm and she was there at Maharishi Institute. I don't know, whatever. But anyway, so I grew up with meditation being a practice.

and I wanna, I'm gonna tell you here in a little bit too, I'm gonna, I may as well just tell you now. So recently, like this last week, I went and bought myself, y'all. It's on sale. This is like one of the best purchases I have made, and I don't know how long I went and got, it's a sharper image, steamer spa room.

It's this past weekend, it was on sale for a hundred bucks, a hundred dollars and it gets super hot in there. And it's enough space where I can stand. I'm short. I'm only five two, but like, um, I can stand, I can sit. They give you a little chair. Anyway, I have been going in there for 15 to 30 minutes a day and it's changed my.

Like, I feel better, more energized, but also clearer minded. I have, more energy, I've got more focus. All the things, my parents, both of 'em, I'm predisposed to high blood pressure, even though I, I've got really good, um, habits. You know, I have a blood pressure monitor at home and I'm always aware of where my blood pressure is because of that. It's a silent killer. But anyway, and especially after what we've been through, y'all like having a constant cortisol cosing through your, body, high blood pressure wouldn't be surprising. For many of us anyway, depending on your age and genetics, and steam rooms wet saunas are proven to lower your blood pressure. Anyway. It's the best thing I ever bought. A hundred bucks. Y'all, you should go get yourself one.

Thank me later. oh, the reason I said that is because of mindfulness and meditation in that time. At first I was like, what am I gonna do with myself for 15 minutes in there? 20 minutes, 30 minutes in there.

I, I didn't know if I was gonna be able to take it. 'cause I'm pretty go, go, go. And I've actually, it's been so amazing just chilling in there. It's been my little vacation. It is, it's my reward at the end of the day. Actually, I've done it in the morning too,

it puts me to bed at night and it wakes me up after a workout in the morning. I've done both ways 

📍 📍 social connection. There's an 85 year study of adult development from Harvard. Okay? This is the strongest evidence to support The longest running happiness study found that  the quality of relationships is the single most important predictor of long-term happiness and health. What does that mean? It means that. Yes. Maybe with your kiddos, things are not good right now and of course not so great with your ex, I'm gathering.  Creating relationships, a sense of connection, you define what relationship means to you.

 I need to say this because some people think like I have close, friend connections, but they don't live close to me, like in this town. Okay. Most of my, I've got friends in Austin, I mean, they're all like, I talk with 'em on the phone. So long as you feel good feelings you feel a sense of love inside you when you speak with them and about them and you know that you have support, it's all in your perception, right?

And also when I think of the podcast like relating to you, and I know it seems crazy 'cause I never understood this one. Podcast host would say this, like, my coach used to say this years ago on her podcast too, that like she felt connected to us with us also, Amy Porterfield used to say that she felt connected to her audience. And I was like, what is she talking about? How could she feel connected that she can't see them? She doesn't know what's going on with them. I completely understand it now and the relationship I have with y'all. It causes me to feel love and to feel good and to feel motivated and all the, all the good things.

Like I get into a flow state when I, I'm writing my outline and when I'm talking with you, sometimes, not always my state when I'm talking with you, but many times I am. And that creates a sense of connection inside of me. You know, so you decide what social connection means for you,

but. Anyway.

Social fitness, which is the ability to build and maintain relationships, outperformed genes like your predispositions, social class, and iq in predicting happiness. In this Harvard study, the 85 year study, even brief micro connections, where you're making meaningful eye contact. exchanging genuine smiles, appreciative texts, whatever it is, boost oxytocin, and mooch. so let, like I said, you define what social connection means for you.   📍 📍 📍 📍 📍 Acts of kindness. Also very strong evidence to support that performing.

Listen y'all, five acts of kindness on one day per week for six weeks increases happiness, five acts of kindness, just one day a week. For six weeks increases your happiness set point. The helper's high creates neurochemical rewards that boost your baseline mood. I love that they call it the helper's high. 📍  

📍 physical activity, of course, strong evidence to support this exercise releases endorphins and reduces stress hormones. Even small amounts have outsized effects on mood.  so I have so much . Data here in all of these different studies and research, there's the PERMA model, a comprehensive framework PERMA is the acronym, right?

P is for positive emotions, E is for engagement. Flow states like I was just kind of referring to. R is for relationships. M is for meaning and purpose. Creating meaning and purpose, and A is for a sense of accomplishment. Okay. Research shows interventions targeting any of these five components are effective at increasing happiness and reducing depressive symptoms.  📍 📍

Listen,

for us, in am ambiguous grief, savoring practices, deliberately extending positive experiences for at least 20 seconds. So like let's say you have a positive experience and it's like one of those micro moments if you deliberately extend it for at least 20 seconds. It helps to transfer them from short-term memory to long-term memory, creating a happiness reservoir, to access during difficult moments.

You hear me? So just moving your little exchanges from five seconds or three seconds to 20 seconds, we'll transfer all of those moments from short-term memory into your long-term memory, creating a reservoir, back stock to access during difficult moments. 

Both and And journaling as I already talked about, Write daily statements that hold both truths. I'm grieving and I'm finding moments of joy.  

Micro joy's practice.

Research also shows that the frequency of positive experiences matters more than the intensity of positive experiences, So scheduling two, five to 15 minute pleasurable activities daily, , those small, regular moments sustain, sustain your mood longer than waiting for occasional big events. 

Okay? Now, as I say that, I think of my daughter back when she was little, itty bitty, like two and a half. And I took her, it was me and my friend Kat. We took our two littles. Two, um. Uh, Busch Gardens in Texas, in San Antonio, and we spent the whole day there. Like it was a long day for the kiddos, and they were exhausted, but at the end of the day, I, I told her before we went, we're, we're gonna have a big day day, honey.

It's gonna be a big day, big day. And at the end of the day, I had to drag her out of the park and she was in tears. She was so tired, but she kept saying, big day mama. Big day. Like, all she wanted to do was continue the big day. And it's not big day anymore if we're leaving, you know? I don't know why that just told you all these like, memories are coming back to me. 

anyway, the big days like that are great. but make sure that you're not just holding out for the big days. Also, schedule these little, little baby little things. Two a day, five to 15 minute pleasurable activities daily. Okay, back to my sauna that my steam's on. Two of those a day or one of those a day and one of something else a day for me, it's working out

or a conversation with a friend you know, whatever it is that you love to do.

So, as you guys know, post-traumatic growth framework research shows that struggle can lead to growth in five different five domains. Let me just say that I wanna stress that it can lead to growth in five domains, meaning that you don't have to choose it, you're not wrong for not choosing it.

It was like a double negative, but you know what I'm saying? And it's not like because you're believing that. This was always God's plan or this was what was in the car for me. Although I do trust that for me, that's just my choice. But you don't have to believe that this was always gonna happen if you don't want to.

you could just decide that though you hate that alienation has happened, you wish it If you could, go back today and change it and make it never happen. You absolutely would. But now that we're here, also you have a greater appreciation for life.

Now that it did happen, a, you appreciate just more things that maybe once you were, oblivious to, or you just were not grateful for. So greater appreciation for life. You have stronger relationships as a result of the significant lows that you experienced during alienation, right? Another domain is a new sense of purpose. After this whole calamity, like ongoing grief and everything, now you have a sense of purpose. That's definitely for me, I have a totally new take on life and a new sense of purpose, right? Helping y'all, , for increased resilience for sure. Right Now that you've gone through all this maybe before where you were a bit naive and there was, you know, even the little things bothered you now that you've been through this and the little things don't really even touch you anymore.

and also a more meaningful outlook on how you choose to see the world. Those are the ways that, there's just five ways, there's

Subcategories to those. But anyway, this doesn't minimize, like I said, this doesn't minimize the pain and it acknowledges that growth and suffering can coexist. What I was kind of just saying doesn't mean that you have to love what's happened or that it lessens your pain or that you should be thankful for the pain or thankful that alienation happened.

Not, no, not if you don't want to. It's just that you can actually be suffering or have suffered. and also experience growth. Okay, so in closing y'all, I just wanna say that the research shows that happiness can be changed. Your happiness level can be changed.

And I believe the way that I see it is that now that we have experienced this extreme low, as you may have heard me say before, I feel like to the other side of the spectrum, we can experience the highs that we never felt before. So where some people say, I'll never experience joy again. I think the opposite's true.

Okay. It is like, well, now that I've experienced this far on the sort of, as the pendulum swings this side of it, then of course I'm gonna experience the other side of it, right? This, this created a whole new, on either side set of levels for me to experience, so happiness can be changed not by denying your grief, but intentionally building practices that support your wellbeing alongside it.

So because of this grief and be like, having gone through this now, I've really created this infrastructure that support my own wellbeing and maybe other loved ones in my life, their, their wellbeing too. I'm able to be there, be present for my life. Now that this, all of this has happened because I've created, I've now rebuilt myself in the ground up.

That's the, that's the way that you can look at everything you want to, you know, the goal isn't about getting over it, but to live well despite the ambiguity. Live well, I wrote that. And to live to your fullest, despite the ambiguity. Okay? So that's what I have for you, you guys. Um.

This supports everything that we talk about, that alienation does not have to define you. It and the alienating parent now has not won for the rest of life because now they've ruined your life in forever. And this is always how it'll be, not if you don't want it to be. You can intentionally raise your happiness set point to higher than it ever was prior to alienation.

And again, we're not thinking alienation or the alienating parent for this, it just has been a byproduct of this. Now we've dug that deep to build ourselves back up in a, in a more complete, full way, you know? So y'all have a lovely week, and I will see you next week. Take care.

 Thanks so much for listening today. If you like what you're hearing and you'd like to hear more, please make sure to click subscribe wherever you're listening or watching. Also, for bite-sized clips and tips, be sure to find me on TikTok or Instagram. See you next week.

 

 00:00 Introduction to Beyond The High Road Podcast

00:34 Understanding Happiness Set Point

02:25 Personal Journey and Nonprofit Aspirations

06:30 Introduction to the Science of Happiness

11:25 Hedonic Treadmill and Happiness Research

22:18 Ambiguous Grief and Its Impact

26:55 The Paradox of Ambiguous Grief

28:42 Finding Words for Grief

30:09 Understanding Chronic Sorrow

33:54 Building Resilience with Boss's Guidelines

36:44 Evidence-Based Happiness Interventions

41:13 The Power of Social Connection

43:40 Acts of Kindness and Physical Activity

47:24 Post-Traumatic Growth Framework

49:38 Concluding Thoughts on Happiness and Grief