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Ep. 1 - What A Vibrant Life Is And Why It Matters

Season #1

SHOW SUMMARY:

In this episode, I’m talking about what it means to live a vibrant life and why it is so important to create your life intentionally. It has a little something to do with your purpose, science, magic, and your divine nature!

 

SHOW MAP:

  • 3:03: It’s clear that we get unhappier in midlife. Why is this the case and why isn’t it a midlife crisis?
  • 5:30: What it means to live a vibrant life.
  • 7:40: The elements of Vibrant Living, including defining JOY and how it is different than happiness.
  • 11:15: How are meaning and wellbeing part of a vibrant life?
  • 13:58: What is the value of a vibrant life? Why should you make it a priority?
  • 15:25: Purpose is powerful and it’s not something you “find”
  • 16:45: The biggest reason to create your vibrant life and how it connects science and ancient wisdom.
  • 19:47: The egoic human part of us isn’t less important than the spiritual part of us.
  • 23:18: Thriving is a choice. You can craft your own best life using a little science and magic!

 

 WHAT TO DO NEXT:

 

RESOURCES:

 

SPEAKERS:

Hostess SUZETTE CONWAY founded the Flittersphere™, a collection of courses, communities, and coaching programs, to support women 40 and older in creating a vibrant midlife! It’s a great time to shift things so you can release the burned out, angsty, restless feeling of living disconnected from what you are meant for and finally have the deeply satisfying life your spirit craves. Suzette started her company in 2017, bringing the wisdom of a 25-year career in corporate learning & development, a degree in communications, deep curiosity and a love of exploring the human experience, a nerdy obsession with positive psychology (the science of thriving!), a craving for Sparkable Moments™... and a determination to live vibrantly! This quickly turned into a mission of enabling better human experiences and helping women live more Sparkable Lives™!   From that, this podcast was born! Learn more and join the Flittersphere™ with the links below.

 

TRANSCRIPT: 

Hey there. Welcome to the Sparkable Moments podcast, where we have conversations to feed the soul! In this show, we explore the human experience using a mix of science, personal stories, random ponderings, and deep-end-of-the-pool discussions. I’m your hostess Suzette Conway. I’m a happiness coach and the creator of the Flittersphere, which is a community of women intent on crafting our most vibrant lives. This show is part of my mission to raise the world’s vibration and consciousness by creating better human experiences to change the world in beautiful and spectacular ways!  I’m so glad you’re joining me on the journey! 

In today’s show, we are talking about what it means to thrive as human beings. At the end of the show, I have a fantastic gift for you and a heads up on a new program that’s launching soon! And, I also have an activity you can do in under 20 minutes to help you live more vibrantly. Be sure to stick around to hear all the details and grab the gift!

Ok, this is the first episode of my new podcast!  Whoo Hoo!  You can’t see it right now, but I’m doing a little happy dance as I record this show. I am beyond excited to put this into the world.

It has been just under a year since I admitted to myself that I wanted to create the Sparkable Moments™ podcast and seeing it come to life brings me immense joy and satisfaction… and honestly, a little fear and some nagging concerns about my ability to commit to things... but mostly joy and satisfaction!

And I think that's so fitting since joy and satisfaction are central themes of today’s episode.

So, let’s get started… because I want to talk about something important. I want to talk to you about living a rich, full life in which we flourish as human beings. I call this living a vibrant life and it has a little something to do with being happy, so let’s start there.

Very few of us are happy all the time. It’s normal for emotions to fluctuate, and happiness comes and goes throughout our lives. And not just day to day, but in stages of our life. For instance, data shows that young kids are pretty happy, but unhappiness grows as we age. Midlife, especially, is a time when happiness tends to take a dive.

A study published in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization analyzed over 14 million participants and found that for people in Europe and the United States, unhappiness increases and hits a high in our late 40s. They looked at indicators for unhappiness like anxiety, worry, loneliness, sadness, stress, depression, and pain. They even looked at confidence levels, feeling like a failure, feeling left out, and being under strain. They factored in age, marital status, political views, education, the economy, and so forth. And what the research tells us is that it’s clear that we get unhappier in midlife. 

Why is this the case and why isn’t it a midlife crisis? The researchers in that huge study suggest there are three possible reasons.

First, we learn to adapt to our strengths and our weaknesses over time and start to see our realities change… so in mid-life we start to think we won’t realize our dreams and aspirations from when we were younger.

Second, it may be that cheerful people live longer than miserable people and there is sort of this “survival of the fittest” effect in which we see higher levels of happiness as we age past midlife because there are simply more happy people left at those older ages.

And third is that as we age past midlife, we recognize that people around us are getting sick and dying and we start to be grateful for our blessings and good health and, therefore we become happier. Simply put, we CHOOSE happiness more as we age than we do in midlife.

Other research shows us that we are happiest at ages 33, 55, and in our 70s, on average. Thirty-three because we have the energy and knowledge to pursue our dreams. 55 because we’ve built up enough assets and authority to be comfortable. And seventies because we’re free at that age of many stressful responsibilities that we have at younger ages, and we have the time and room to reflect on our accomplishments. And these findings support that we are unhappier in midlife, and it adds to possible reasons why. In midlife, many of us lack the energy, assets, and freedom that we have at other points in life. It makes sense. Our energy and assets are going to our families and our careers, and everyday life is full of stressors we don’t often have when we are younger or older.... like kids to raise, mortgages to pay, etc.

There is tons of research on this issue and it is clear that we get unhappier in midlife. Some people may see this data about midlife unhappiness and think it is evidence of a so-called midlife crisis. Personally, I’m not a fan of that concept. I prefer to see it as a call to create a midlife shift that helps us to be happier and healthier and to thrive again, on purpose. It’s an opportunity to look honestly at our current reality and ask ourselves what we want, and then choose to create a life in line with that. We don’t lose the ability to be conscious creators just because we age into midlife. We simply need to reconnect to those creative skills. This is a primary focus of creating a vibrant life.

Now, the details of what makes a life vibrant will be different for each of us. But I think I can define vibrant living in a way that most of us can relate to and that still gives us the room to paint our own personal picture of it.

So, what is a vibrant life?  I define it as a life that is full of joy, meaning, and wellbeing, in which we are aligned to our gifts and strengths and to our true nature and purpose, a life in which we live intentionally and function optimally, in service of our highest good, honoring what our genius spirit wants for us.

I love that definition. It speaks to my soul. What a life to aspire to! I developed that definition of a vibrant life for myself after years of practicing intuitive, spiritual, and creative principles in the pursuit of my own best life. It’s got all the good stuff in there – the stuff that lights us up and lifts us into our best selves… I mean, look at it! We’re using our gifts, tapping into our strengths, knowing and honoring our essence and purpose, embracing intentionality and choice and all the personal power and responsibility that entails, and functioning really well, more than just getting by, it means thriving. And it’s all in SERVICE of our inner spirit.. of something bigger than our human selves. I find the notion of knowing about that something bigger, and honoring and connecting to it.. to be awe-evoking. When I let myself really settle into what it means for me, it gives me goosebumps.. and hope… and a deep sense of purpose and possibility.

I think this definition of a vibrant life is a framework that is universally applicable but can also be personally customized. What are YOUR gifts? What is YOUR essence? What is YOUR genius spirit calling you to do and be in this life? What does it mean to YOU to live optimally?  What is YOUR highest good? What does it mean to YOU to connect to your something bigger?

Reflecting on all that is a soul-satisfying experience. And so is living in alignment with it!  This is spirit-centered work, and it isn’t for everyone. Let’s break it down a bit and see how it resonates with you.

We’ll start with Joy. I think of this as more than simple happiness. Happiness is a typically fleeting, emotional state – a positive, pleasant, or pleasurable feeling. That seems simple enough. But to me, pleasant or pleasurable represent very different experiences. When I think of pleasant, I imagine an agreeable person or a fall afternoon with clear blue skies and a lazy day of reading in the sun. When I think of pleasure, I think of sex and chocolate and crispy, salty, pieces of pork belly melting in my mouth!  Pleasant is an evening walk. Pleasure is a full-body, deep tissue massage with scented oils, and music, outside, for 2 hours.

The word pleasant is actually rooted in the 14th century meaning for being liked, or acceptable, or approved of. It evolved to also mean to delight, to attract someone, to amuse, or entertain. And these are all perfectly lovely things. But then there is pleasure. In the 14th century, this came to mean desire, the source of enjoyment, or that which pleases or gratifies the senses or the mind. I love that! Now, by the 15th century pleasure evolved to mean "sensual gratification” and "indulgence of the appetites as the chief objective of life".

Think about that… the pursuit of pleasure was seen as a primary objective of life. A pleasant life wasn’t enough. Seeking pleasure, something richer and more gratifying, was the goal. And I think there is something even higher than pleasure. It’s JOY.

These days, as we are actively exploring all the things about the science of happiness, which I love, we are often told to skip the pursuit of happiness in favor of meaningfulness. But I think a full and satisfying life includes both. And to me, that is where joy fits in. I think you can plot it on a continuum as related but different experiences. We can move from simple happiness to pleasant experiences to pleasurable experiences and then on to JOY.

JOY is happiness plus meaning. It is heart-centered happiness that lights up your soul. The lower kinds of happiness are hedonic. They are rooted in pleasure. And there is nothing wrong with pursuing them. But they are quickly passing emotions and experiences. Joy is a transcendent experience that lingers beyond the moments of whatever triggered the happiness. It is a higher kind of happiness, called a eudemonic state. Because joy includes the positive emotions of happiness, which are proven to be good for us, and the deeper experiences of meaning, also proven to be good for us, JOY itself contributes to our overall wellbeing and helps us flourish in our human experience.

Here is an example of joy. Happiness might be having a good glass of wine with some friends while you listen to a cover band sing your favorite 80s music. But Joy is the free, full-throated laughter with your best friends as you sing along to those songs and reminisce about your teen years while reveling in your midlife tradition of getting together every week at your favorite pub to bond and celebrate the doing of life together. The wine and the music are fine. But the meaningfulness of the rest of it is what creates the deeper joy that serves us so well as human beings.

Joy is powerful. And now I hope you see why I also included MEANING in the definition of vibrant living. Living with Meaning is about living in a way that is personally significant, and that includes having a direction or purpose that motivates us. This provides a sense of balance and context that helps us move beyond the commotion and craziness of life by anchoring us to something bigger than ourselves. Meaningfulness can be tied to things like connecting with good friends, raising a family, helping a sick loved one, or maybe the satisfaction of solving a problem, teaching someone a skill, or growing a community garden. It often includes other people, but it doesn’t have to. It just needs to be significant to you and have some higher purpose. That’s the difference between the visceral, pleasurable feelings of hedonic happiness, and something higher and more meaningful

Wellbeing is the third big anchor in vibrant living. Wellbeing is about being comfortable, happy, and healthy in life. We already know that joy and meaningfulness contribute to wellbeing, but it’s more than that. Wellbeing can relate to any area of your life. So, ask yourself - are you comfortable, healthy, and happy as it relates to your physical health, or spiritually, or emotionally? What about your finances, or your relationships or your work? How are you doing with your sense of self-expression and creativity?

Wellbeing is really about quality of life. And I contend that the higher your sense of wellbeing, the easier it is to express your spirit in the world, which makes you happy and helps you thrive, and creates wellbeing. It’s like a loop. Now, that doesn’t mean you have to be doing well in every area of your life to thrive. But the more wellness that you can create in more areas of your life, the better you’ll feel about your life and the better you’ll feel in life.

Like the rest of the definition of vibrant living, wellbeing can be personalized. Think about what it means to YOU to be physically healthy and how that may be different than what it means to someone else to be physically healthy. We have different life experiences, capabilities, resources, and goals. For me, health includes things like lowering my systemic inflammation and keeping my blood sugar in check, and being able to move freely and without pain. For someone else being healthy may mean being able to run a marathon. For others, it could be developing the flexibility and stamina needed to play with their grandkids. Maybe it means being fit enough to walk around old-world cities for days, allowing for more joyful travel experiences. The same can be said for what it means to you or anybody else to be well in any area of your life. 

With all that being said… you might still be asking what is the value of a vibrant life? Why should you care about intentionally creating an authentic, awe-inspiring, soul-satisfying human experience? Well, I contend that you should not only care about it, you should make it a priority. Why?

Simply put, creating a vibrant life helps you live a longer. It helps you to be happier and have a more satisfying existence. Why would you want to settle for anything less than the highest quality life you can create?  To me the “why do it?” is really about “why not do it?”

And it isn’t as hard as we think it is. There are so many little things that we can purposely do to live a better life. Consider optimism. Research shows that optimistic people are better leaders, more resilient, and they tend to have fewer health problems. They live longer and have better moods, higher self-esteem, and better relationships than pessimistic people. Developing this mindset is possible. It’s not like you are either optimistic or not. You can train yourself to become more optimistic. 

Not enough for you? Research also shows that deep, chronic loneliness is a bigger predictor of early death than smoking. We humans are biologically wired for connection. Nurturing good relationships is essential to thriving. So, what can you do to create better relationships in your life? It doesn’t’ have to be earth-shattering stuff. Small changes over time move us forward.

Want more? People with a sense of purpose get sick less often. They better manage and mitigate stress and they have a strong sense of psychological balance, a mental fortitude. And, they also live longer. Purpose is powerful. There is a lot out there these days on the urgency of finding your purpose and how to do it. This is why… it improves the quality of your life.

Personally, I believe that your purpose is not so much something you find, as it is something you remember and reconnect to. You can do this by experimenting and trying new things, engaging more in the world, and opening your mind to possibilities. We’ll talk more about purpose in a bit, so stick around for that.

But for right now, I just want to say, clearly, it’s important to know what contributes to human thriving, like optimism, connection, purpose… and for that matter creativity, play, and good sleep. It’s also important to know how to create these things in your life in a way that works for you. And when you do, it can have powerful impacts on the quality of your life. So, whether you’re here for 20 years or 120 years, don’t you want to make the most of it?  I know I sure want to.

And if you are like me, you deeply desire to have the best human experience you can in your time on this earth. To me, the most basic reason to create your vibrant life is because you can and because it feels good.

If you need a deeper answer, I have one for you. It starts with my favorite quote, from French Philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Pierre says “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”

Our true nature is spiritual, divine.

I agree with Chardin so much that I actually believe it is our primary purpose is to live our best human experience and that doing that is rooted in an ongoing effort to reconnect to and fully express our true, spiritual nature, our own divinity. All other purposes we may remember or find or create for ourselves are part of that primary purpose.

Yes, you heard that right. I believe creating our most vibrant lives, is our primary purpose.  And dare I say… our responsibility… to ourselves, to God, to the universe, and to all that came before us and all that comes after us.  It is the highest form of living intentionally, living consciously, and living bravely.

I think the folks in the 15th century had it right --- the pursuit of more than a pleasant life is good for us. We deserve to create a vibrant life, to truly thrive. We are designed for exactly that. I know all that can feel like a big task, a difficult perspective to live up to. It’s worth pointing out that none of this needs to be done perfectly. You don’t need to experience some perfect level of wellbeing and meaning and joy in every area of your life in order to be living vibrantly. Perfect doesn’t even really exist. The point of the definition of vibrant living, the point of the quest for living our best lives and seeking the something more we are meant for… it’s all about an ever-evolving, spiraling up of our spirit’s expression in the world. The evolving is never done. We’re never done. That means there is always room for expansion and growth. It means we can always choose to thrive in whatever space we are in at any given moment. It’s about mindset and intention, really. It’s never about perfection. In this way, you can think of the goal of experiencing a vibrant life as directional. It’s meant to pull you towards a higher state of being, like some gravitational force. That state of being is not a destination you reach and then you’re done. It’s an ongoing journey.

And if the directional pull only moves you one inch further today or five feet closer tomorrow… or if you have a quantum leap into your next best level of self-expression… or if you feel like you are sliding backward years in your evolution… it is all ok. Because it ALL matters and it’s ALL valuable. That’s because all of it, even the bits that don’t feel so vibrant, help you to evolve into who you are meant to be. It’s all part of the journey that you’re on.

I think it’s powerful, in fact, to train ourselves out of thinking of things from the perspective of “sliding backward’. On those days when we engage our egoic doubts and fears and assumptions and expectations, our limiting beliefs, and self-sabotaging strategies… when we engage in our humanness more than we engage our spiritual nature… it’s not a failure. It’s not a step backward. It is, in fact, part of the experience as a whole. The egoic human part of us isn’t less important than the spiritual part of us. It’s there to help us see and value and strive toward the spiritual part of us. We need our humanness. So even when we experience what feels like a failure or setback, it’s a myth that that is a less valuable part of us or that it in some way counteracts our goal of evolving. It IS in fact, the evolving. It IS the journey to see that part of us at work and to see all aspects of our human and spiritual nature and choose what of us we will express in any given moment. We never leave the path of our own evolution. The whole of the experience is something to celebrate and embrace.  

When we can train ourselves to see our experience from that perspective, we don’t need to be perfect. We simply need to be aware, intentional, and engaged in the pursuit, fully immersed in the human and spiritual experiences of ourselves. That alone will change you forever. That alone deeply connects you with the something bigger than you.

I love all of this stuff and I hope that you do, too. One of my favorite things about vibrant living is that it’s so popular right now. There is an entire industry around flourishing. The field of positive psychology studies things like resilience, gratitude, and altruism. Neuroscience studies things like the effects of loneliness on our brains. People like Ariana Huffington are rethinking how we live and work, so that we prioritize wellness and end burnout. Mindfulness apps like Calm and Headspace are wildly popular and raising millions in funding rounds.  Wellness tourism, like a retreat in Bali, is a $639 billion industry. The spa economy alone is worth $119 billion. Bookstores are full of resources on happiness, meaning, habit formation, emotional intelligence, mindset, mindfulness, and human performance. Human Flourishing is having a moment.

This isn’t fluff. Ancient wisdom and spiritual traditions have long known what science is now proving…

  • That tools like meditation, visualization, and breathwork serve us in powerful ways.
  • That energy centers are real, and the mind-body connection is unmistakable.
  • That mindfulness, connection, and having a sense of purpose are keys to happiness and wellbeing.
  • That cultivating a sense of awe, practicing gratitude, and integrating play and rest into your life, will drastically enhance the quality of your life.

I value all this stuff so much I use it in my own life, and I incorporate it into my coaching programs that help professional women flourish in midlife. It brings me immense joy to integrate the science-backed practices with the spiritual and ancient wisdom along with intuition, and creative principles. I’ve seen it create powerful transformations in my own life and with my clients and coaching colleagues. And what I know is this… Vibrant living is something you can do intentionally. Thriving is a choice. You can craft your own best life along your personal path by leveraging the old and new, the known and the proven, the intuitive and the rational, the masculine and feminine. Or as I like to call it all.. the science and the magic.

Indeed, human flourishing is definitely having a moment.

I don’t know about you, but I’m determined to live my best life and I’m on a mission to help others do the same. I want you to know that it is ok to want more than a safe, average, good on paper, pleasant life. It’s ok to want a deeply satisfying life that is full of joy and meaning and so much more.

We are meant to thrive. When you feel yourself thinking… something is missing. Something is off or wrong in my life. I should be happier, right? Is there something more to life?  The answer is yes... you are MEANT for something more. And that “more” is found by reconnecting to yourself, to how you truly want to be in this world and then learning to intentionally be that.

It’s why I take this stand for YOU and me and every other person on this journey… here it is: You deserve your best life, and the world needs the highest version of you. Those two things are related, and they are worthy of your attention because you are the only one who can create the life your soul craves… and when you do it, everyone around you benefits because a thriving version of you is better able to contribute to the world and the people in it.. and because experiencing yourself fully is your right and your primary purpose! It is time to be fully expressed in the world. 

When we do this, we create a vibrant life full of  SPARKABLE MOMENTS™ that light our spirit on fire and awaken us in unexpected ways. They may be moments of inspiration, or insights; moments of deep connection, to other people, or the world around us, or to our authentic self. Whatever they are, Sparkable Moments™ leave us feeling expanded, more open, more alive, more aware. Living our best life, true to who we are and what our spirit wants is what produces the Sparkable Moments™ and the vibrant life that is so good for us and the world.

Imagine what is possible in a world full of self-realized, happy, fulfilled, on-purpose people living in a way that lights up their spirit! If you feel ready for that, I want to invite you to join the Flittersphere™. It’s a space to connect with other women who are eager to revel in people, and possibilities, and purpose as they do this soul-satisfying work. There is a link to the online community in the show notes. I hope you’ll join us in the Flittersphere™ as you embrace your own journey to your best life.

To get you started on that journey, or to help supplement it, I’ve also included a link in the show notes to a worksheet that will help you begin to explore what you want in each area of your life and what holds you back. I invite you to complete the activity as a gift to yourself… a few moments of purposely focusing on what you’d love in your life as if you actually matter. Because you do.

I think many of us tend to put others before ourselves, often to our own detriment. We think it’s the right thing to do but that’s not always the case. We spend all of our energy trying to do and be everything to everyone and we have nothing left for ourselves. By the time we hit midlife, living this way can leave us stressed out, burned out, exhausted, unhappy, resentful, etc., and it likely leaves us struggling in more than one area of our lives – our health, our relationships, our career, our creative expression, and more. 

It is ok to question how you are living and if it serves you. I hope you can see from today’s show that creating your vibrant life is good for you and the world around you. You deserve nothing less. It’s your right and, if you want it, it is your responsibility to build it.  Vibrancy is a choice, and while making choices that serve us can feel scary sometimes, it’s actually a very good thing. Intentionality is a strength. Showing up for yourself, as yourself, is a superpower.

I feel so strongly about this that I have built an entire group coaching program that will help you shift your life so you can live vibrantly… with joy, meaning, and wellbeing, aligned to your gifts and strengths and to your true nature and purpose, living intentionally and functioning optimally, in service of your highest good and what your genius spirit wants for you.

The program is opening for enrollment soon and if you feel called to do this work in your life, I invite you to join in. As a special gift in celebration of launching this Sparkable Moments™ Podcast, I’m giving you a discount code that will take 15% off the program price and it will be good for the first 3 months after launch. The code is SYVL15. So, an abbreviation for Shift into Your Vibrant Life™ 15. Write that down and then join the Flittersphere™ community and watch for the launch announcement.

I hope that the concept of intentionally creating your vibrant life resonates with you and that you’ll join us on this journey.

Ok… that wraps up today’s episode. In the next episode, I’ll share a personal story of how I showed up for myself in midlife so I could live more vibrantly. And I’ll talk about how the constant quest to live fully, to not waste this life, has driven me and tortured me, and how it finally freed me to live authentically by pursuing what my spirit wants. I hope you’ll listen in as we discuss the power of a midlife shift… and why it may be time to focus on YOUR midlife shift. 

If you enjoyed this show join the ongoing conversation in the Flittersphere™ and share what resonated with you. There’s a link in the show notes. Also, please share the podcast with your friends and subscribe so you don’t miss a thing! 

Thank you so much for listening to this inaugural episode of the Sparkable Moments™ podcast. I hope you’ll come back often to have more conversations to feed the soul! 

Thanks for listening to the Sparkable Moments podcast, produced by Purple Chicken Life and shared through the Flittersphere™. I’m Suzette Conway and you can find with me at Flittersphere.com. Remember… you deserve to have your most vibrant life and the world needs the highest version of you. Those two things are related, and they are worthy of your attention because you are the only one who can create the life your soul craves… and when you do, everyone around you benefits! So go on, be vibrant!

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