154. How to be Happy Through Meditation with Tamy Khan the “Happy Meditator”

Dr. Brad Miller, glad to be with you here on

beyond adversity, to podcast where we help folks like you to

navigate beyond depression or disease or divorce or some other

thing that has you stuck in order for help you to come to a

place that I like to call the promised life a piece of peace,

prosperity and purpose. We do that through teaching and

leadership and talking to people who have processes, and

methodologies and strategies that can help you to navigate

adversity in your life. And we have a happy person with us

today. She is the happy meditator. Her name is Tammy

Khan. And she specializes in helping folks to release stress

to reset their mind and body and enjoy a peaceful night's sleep.

And she's a happy person. So welcome to the podcast today.

The Happy meditator Tammy Kahn.

Thank you so much for having me here. I'm very

grateful and excited to go through this interview with you,

Brad. Awesome.

Well, we're glad to have had you Tammy. Happy

meditator. What makes you happy? What makes you happy? My friend?

Yeah. Happiness is a journey that I'll say I started

around seven years ago, as a result of health problem.

adversity. Yes, very connected to our re when are we talking

today, I found myself lost, I found myself stuck. And I had a

background in mental health in social work. So I knew I was not

clinically depressed, I couldn't diagnose myself on the press.

But I was deeply unhappy, that I knew for sure. And at that time,

I decided to enroll in a happiness course. And I thought

there are things in my life that I know they're going well, but

I'm feeling mentally so stuck, that I'm not able to see pass

through my mental blocks. Part of this course that I took on

happiness, got me thinking about other mindfulness strategies

that I have used before, but I was not being very consistent.

So I start to create this sort of pillars of foundation, in

which I started to build really, a truly happy life. And one of

the first things I realized in this happiness journey is that I

was focusing on the wrong things I was focusing on, on holding on

to things that were external factors that were basically

blocking my happiness. And once I realized that the flaw thing

here, it was my own definition of happiness, that I needed to

restructure that and build a in my life, more habits, that were

truly going to guide me to be more happy. things started to

change, for me really quickly. And one of the things about

happiness that I think this past year, has put a lot of us into

testing, right, really testing our tools. And I'm happy to

report that that journey that I started seven years ago, and

those tools that I put into practice are still working for

me, even in the deeply adverse conditions that we're all going

through at this time.

Yes, well, of course, we're referring to at

least I believe, you're referring to the COVID crisis of

pandemic and all these other things we're dealing with, as we

stuck, don't they they can get stuck, or they can get sidelined

by adverse conditions. And and you don't many people go to this

unhappy place, don't think and, and you were in this unhappy

place, and you don't have to go into great detail. But what were

some of the factors that took you to that unhappy place? And

then what were you so you mentioned taking a course for

us? So what were some of the actions that you took to break

those patterns?

Well, the first thing, as I mentioned was my

definition of happiness was wrong. I was focusing mostly on

external factors to determine my happiness. Just to give you an

example, I was thinking, you know, my career needs to change

for me unable to be happy. my financial situation needs to

change my relationships needs to change all these sort of

external things that I have no control of. So one of the first

thing I realized that my happiness needs to be based on

things I have control of, and those pillars that I learned

from the happiness scores. For for putting them into practice

where basically strategies focus on building a growth mindset,

building emotional resilience, building a mindful life, and

mostly focusing on given my life a sense of purpose, a sense of

meaning, a sense of contribution that was deeply lacking at that

time.

Hmm, that's awesome. That's awesome. So you

took some actions to do that. And you realize that the whole

better job and better relationships and all that kind

of thing, we're not going to be the answer, totally, you had to

go to an inner place. And tell me about, you know, the source

of some of this strength and power. I believe strength and

power, you know, also comes from when we believe there's, there's

more to ourselves here, meaning that, you know, we have to go to

source of power beyond ourselves. And some people

meditate. And some people have prayerful or spiritual practices

or other things, mentors, tell us about any external factors

that were a part of this process. I don't mean that new

job, this kind of thing. But what influenced you to look for

a source greater than yourself, or to give you some strength and

power here?

Yeah. One of the things that I realized that my

mind was mostly focused on negativity, I had a very sort of

limited mindset at the time. And I realized that for many years,

I have lost focus on spirituality. So that was

something that I realized that at the time, I needed to find a

place that I could find a center that I could find inner peace,

and most Slee, that, that could find a refuge that will help me

enabled break all those mental barriers I had created for

myself, meditation, there became a core practice for me, to find

that deeper sense of balance. One of the things you begin to

realize when you begin a meditation practice is the lack

of mental clarity, clarity we have. And one of the things I

realized that I had distanced myself from really connecting,

as you mentioned, with an inner source. And I began also to

develop other practices that helped me enable to see that and

my other important connection that I call my spiritual

practice, is by connecting with nature, when we connect with

what nature is Mother Earth, we can see that they there has to

be something greater than us, that is able to connect all

these sources of energy and evolve and enable for us to

still be here. So those are two fundamental things that I think

what are so deeply in this journey?

And what are some of the ways that you do that?

And what are you very purposeful and connected with nature, like,

oh, hiking, or walking or, you know, skiing or whatever, tell

me a little bit about how you connect with nature.

I love to meditate in nature. Because I can use their

mindfulness tools to connect with my body to connect with my

breath. But also, there's this deep connection that we can see,

to a higher power, or whatever you want to call it in nature,

that it's not all really soothing physically for us. To

me, it started connecting the sense of spirituality, with

energy, energy that comes from how things grow, how life is how

we're all deeply connected into higher things that sometimes we

cannot see through the senses, but we can feel within us. And

for me, walking meditations and stillness in nature is is my way

of practicing that spiritual connection.

That's awesome. That's awesome. Let's talk about

relationships. For a moment, Tammy. And I'm, uh, you know,

you mentioned how you, one of the factors you were kind of

looking for when you were looking other ways to achieve

happiness was how our new job or new relationships might make a

difference for you. And what I want to talk about is positive

relationships or with other folks and how that is a fuel

that helps us to sustain life change. And we're talking here

about ways we can overcome adversity I, you know, the

circumstances we find ourselves in whether it's a pandemic or

health situation or loss of a job or any thing else. We got to

find strategies you can get And sometimes people can be helpful

that you sought out a class, for instance, but tell us about how

relationships can help us and fuel us or whether they be you

know, in person, family, friends, mentors, or possibly

given, you know, books or other other resources tell, but the

power of relationships to help us to navigate through

adversity.

One of the most important things for happiness

and for thriving in life is the quality of our relationships.

When we look at our most important sources of love and

trust, they deeply come from relationships, relationships

with Bill with people we love, and they're around us, it could

be a relationship to a higher power, it could also be their

relationship we develop with tangible things. And an

important thing that we know now for building mental resilience

and dealing with adverse adversity is that we all need

support. No matter what sort of situation you're dealing with,

the resources that you have available can determine whether

you thrive and grow from a situation, or whether you feel

stuck and on resourceful. One important thing when it comes to

building relationship, as you mentioned, is that those

relationships need to be positive, to really help us

grow. So one of the things I realized that my focus, when I

was deeply struggling on happiness, it was that I was

expecting others to change. And I was not taking the initiative

for me to develop within me the strengths too, for me to change

what I was hoping the other person to do. And I started to

change that perspective. And I think this is something really

powerful when it comes to strengthening our relationships,

we need to take control of the things we can do to really build

positive relationships, whether that is through forgiveness,

whether it was whether that is for us to be more affectionate,

more loving, more resourceful, whatever it is, we cannot wait

for other people to change, in order for us to build a positive

relationship

are some of the things that we could do that,

you know, if we have kind of a pattern in our life, and you

know, let's just take a long term relationship, whether it's

a marriage or a family grew up in or long term working

relationship, you know, there are patterns, you can get into

getting kind of stuck in those. Sometimes it can be destructive

or unhealthy. What are sort of things? When you chose to do

some changes in order to improve your relationships? What are

some specific things that we can do?

Yeah, there's two very practical tools that I

recommend people to do when they're stuck in a situation.

First of all, you need to evaluate, what is the source? If

you're dealing with a problem in that relationship? What is the

source? And what is the situation that you're dealing

with, that you have control of? One practice that I recommend

people to do, when they lack that sense of clarity on how to

deal with a situation is to do loving kindness meditation? I'm

not sure if you if you have heard about this type of

meditation?

No, please unpack it a little bit for us, please,

yes,

basically, is a meditation that you focus on

repeating phrases that you want to bring into the relationship,

let's say you're dealing with a problematic situation with a

loved one, that you are thinking that you might end up in

divorce, just to put something out there. And you are hoping

for that person to change, but that has not happened. And you

want to find a place of peace. So you can have the inner

resources to deal with a relationship or whatever, it's,

it's happening. So you bring this frases of the things you

feel you need in that relationship, whether it's love,

whether it's patience, whether it's empathy, compassion, and

you repeat this, this phrases for yourself and for that

person, you are having the challenge with them. Just to

give you a simple example it will be May I be peaceful? May I

be patient? May I have wisdom to deal with this relationship? And

then you say the name of the person and you repeat the same

phrases. This case, you know, may Brad be happy may Brad find

a way to be patient. So you adapt these phrases and you sit

in meditation and you repeat this phrases. This is actually a

proven scientific practice that has been shown to really help

people strengthen relationships. The other important tool that I

recommend to people is to work also with forgiveness practices.

Sometimes the the situations that have had happened in our

past contributed a lot with us being stuck and not being able

to move forward. And it could be sometimes that we need to let

go, we need to let go of the of those things that happen in the

past. So we can build a future. And they are multiple

forgiveness practices that you could do, whether is writing a

forgiveness letter, whether it is doing even forgiveness,

meditation, and I feel that those could be deeply healing

practices that could enable us to overcome challenges and

relationships.

That's very helpful. I think one of the

things I really like to share with the beyond adversity.

Audience is these practical practices, self disciplines,

habits that we can do and, and you know, you've listed several

good people can apply there, let's just say that there is a

person who is deeply impacted by the profound challenges they

have found around the COVID crisis that the whole world is

going under. And it's been exacerbated by a number of

circumstances, maybe, you know, health related or job related or

relationship related, but they're kind of stuck. But I'd

like for us, for us to kind of address that person with

basically what are some of the self disciplines or habits or

practices that we could implement in our lives to help

us to break the pattern, get out of adversity and least move

towards, you know, this happiness to you. advocate here

is the happy meditator.

Yeah, one of the first things that we need to

understand is that happiness goes beyond feeling joyful are

feeling, you know, this sense of optimism. I want people to

consider being happy with connecting within your peace,

connecting with mental balance, connecting with a sense of

serenity, dealing now with all the adversities, and uncertainty

we are experiencing. If we think that happiness is only about

being joyful and optimistic, we're going to have a difficult

time. So we need to reset and find a more present definition

for happiness. For me right now, my definition of happiness is to

feel myself that I'm calm, that I'm balanced, and that I feel

content and grateful for what my life is right now. So I have

built daily practices that I do myself, and I recommend to

people those daily habits, to keep me set on what is my

definition of happiness right now, our definition needs to

evolve and change within the circumstances we're dealing

with. I know the first things I recommend to people is that on a

daily basis, we need to connect with centering practices,

whether for you is a meditation, prayer, reading the Bible,

connecting with nature, we need to find things that connect us

with feeling trust, and feeling safe. So we can calm down all

our nervous are central system, that's one of the first things.

Secondly, we need to connect with things that are energy

boosters. So every day to the best we can we need to do

physical things that get our body moving. And we need to

focus as well, on getting good sleep. good sleep is something

that I feel people neglect so much. And it deeply helps us be

more mentally balanced, be more calm, and also enables our brain

to recharge so we have more physical energy to connect

better with the diversity we're dealing with on a daily basis.

Another important practice that I think we mentioned earlier

relationships every day we need to spend time connecting with

loved ones. And a practice that I recommend and I do actually in

one of my courses is emphasize the importance of affection.

Every day, we need to express love and receive love. Whether

is with a kiss, whether is with a hug, whether it is petting our

animals, whether is making a connection through a phone call,

we need to be sure that we connect with sources of love on

a daily basis and from affection is a very quick, simple way for

us to do that in our relationships. And finally, in

in circumstances that we feel that life feels too much, when

we look around, we will always find people that live for them,

it's harder than ourselves. So connecting with purpose and a

sense of contribution that we are helping others that are more

in need is a very positive strategy. So build within your

schedule, and I say this to people, acts of kindness that

you can do to at least two or three times during your week,

whether is paying for a coffee for the next person in

Starbucks, whether is given a call to an elderly neighbor and

see if they need help with anything, whether it is to go

and volunteer within the limits of our current situation. When

we help others, we build resilience.

Yeah. So make a contribution. I've noticed a few

things you mature, calming the mind, engaging the body with

some movement, and also restoring the body with sleep,

connecting with affection with your loved ones, with physical

signs and verbal signs. And then connecting with a purpose of

contributions are all great things. But I just want to push

back with you just a little bit here. Your Tammy in the sense

that, you know, a lot of folks are really stressed with their

schedule their time, you know, I'll just give an example. My

daughter is about your age and two granddaughters, one of my

granddaughters is two months old and going back to work and

babysitters and, you know, all the old life is she talks a lot

about the stresses of her schedule. I believe in

everything you're saying here. But I want to talk to you about

implementation for a minute, either through like a morning

routine or some other process, how can a person implement

everything you're talking about here and still get a duck,

whatever they're going on in their life, tell you about any

ways that you can implement this?

Yeah, we need to work with the tools we have right

now. And the reality of our situation is that our tools are

limited. Our resources are limited right now. So we need to

reset our expectations, to making things work for us within

when we have for me that has been that I need to step back

and readjust the time I spent in these strengthening tools. So

like you mentioned, I'm a mother. So I'm in a similar

situation. I have young kids at home. And we're coping right now

parents with a lot of things. So I realized that one of the

things I needed to do is that I needed to start my morning

earlier for me to establish a morning routine to set those

center in practice that are essential for me. And also, I

realized that I had to work around with adjusting things. So

they work for me. So instead of doing things that I used to be

able to do before because the kids were in school, now I need

to find all the times in the day to still do those things. One of

the important aspects that we need to realize is that we are

not going to meet all the things we were able to do before we are

right now in a situation that we are surviving and struggling

with dealing with a pandemic. So whatever we do, we need to be

compassionate and kind to ourselves, that we might not be

able to be our best every day. And an important aspect that I

mentioned earlier that I say to people, if you feel tired,

exhausted at night, and you think Well, I didn't get that

workout done. I didn't get that thing on my to do list and not

possible. Put those things to the side, tomorrow will be

another day and focus on getting sleep. We cannot sacrifice our

sleep. And part of the the pillars for well being is for us

to really focus on the main important things. So for me is

centering is my sleep, and ensuring I connect to love on a

daily basis. And then when you have time for those other spare

extra things, you figure out 510 minutes within your schedule

that you are able to fit those other things.

So here you say 10 to give yourself a break and

maybe apply some of the kindness you might have. Or forgive this

you might have applied to other people to yourself as well. Give

yourself a break in there. You got lots of resources that are

helpful to people that happy meditator calm and courses and

no There are good things there and that you have there. But I'd

like for you to share with you, I'm sure you've been working

with folks as well. But tell us about a person or situation you

have worked with, where you've seen a person to be able to, you

know, navigate some stresses in their life or adversities. And

to come out to a better place, out of some of the rich, you

know, coaching or conversations or resources that you provide,

tell us about a success story.

I have so many wonderful stories, because I'm

so grateful for the type of work that I do. But um, I want to

talk to you about one of more, or one of the people that I have

connected with that dealt with really tragic adversity. And

we're talking about trauma from tragedy of losing a child, and

not being able to recover for more than 20 years. 20 years

involve that person being stuck in alcoholism, being stuck with

mental health problems, bipolar problems, and all sorts of

resources, that throughout 20 years, she was trying her truly

best to pull herself out by she was really struggling. And not

until she found meditation, she was not able to obtain that

mental clarity. Why because when our body gets exposed to trauma,

it backs basically starts to set faulty signals through our

brain, that if we don't find practices to rebalance, and

recalibrate our nervous system, we could be stuck for years and

years and cycles of depression, negative unhealthy habits like

alcoholism, or also this other addictive habits. And once she

was able to establish a consistent meditation practice,

she was suddenly able to see more clearly why she has been

stuck all those years. The second aspect that we work with

was emotional intelligence. And once she was able to have the

sense of mental clarity, we started to work with all those

emotions that were stuck in her and, and try to, for her to be

able to understand what was going on and how to cope with

emotions. Thoroughly, she established a consistent

gratitude practice. So instead of focusing consistently, and

what was going wrong in her life, or what went wrong in the

past, her focus became what is the goodness I do have right

now. And finally, she was also a very resourceful person. And she

decided to use her personal suffering as a tool to

contribute to the world. So she started to develop support

groups, for people that were dealing with grief as well. So

she connected all these resources that she already have.

But she didn't have the mental clarity to see that she had all

these strengths. And this is why meditation became such a

powerful tool for her.

Yes. And you were able to kind of guide her and

coach her in this whole process. And that brings me to the

process

of life coaching and and also group work.

Good. But tell us about what if folks are finding

themselves and they such as this woman needed some coaching

direction group work, things like that, that they can turn to

you? What are they going to find with the Tambay con at the

happy, meditator calm? What kind of resources they're going to

find there? How can you be helpful to people who really do

want to break the pattern of adversity and come to a better

place in their life?

Well, the first thing, when people come to me,

we need to understand what is really the difficulties they're

dealing with. And that comes back again to mental clarity. So

we identify a meditation practice that they could start

doing straight away, to try to connect with that centering

element that we all need. The second thing we do is go through

a process or attempt to find strength. To deal with

adversity. We need to work with the strengths we have right now.

We cannot focus on weaknesses and that's something that keeps

a lot of people stuck dealing with problems and then looking

at what they're weak or what is not working. So we need to find

the tools that bring us strength and power. To really make your

those actions that you need to take. Thirdly, we look into

exploring what's going on with their relationships right now,

and see what mindfulness practices we can bring to

strengthen relationships, as we mentioned earlier, connecting

more with a sense of love and trust. And finally, we work at

building emotional resilience. So that's another very important

tool with again, mindfulness practices that enable people not

only for me to help them where they are right now, is about

building tools of silliness that will help you now and for the

rest of your life.

Well, that's awesome. And so you obviously

have found a way to navigate adversity in your own life. And

now you're using your experiences to help other folks

and we have evidence of that and some great tools and our

conversation today indicates you really have a thought thought

out and thoughtful process to be helpful, and we appreciate you

you're doing that. So she is the happy meditator. Her name is tan

because you can find her happy meditator calm, where she can

help you in your life to regain balance in purpose and wholeness

and to be happy. So thank you, Tammy, for being with us today