#367: From Emotional Abuse to Unshakable Joy: A Science-Backed Guide to Finding True Happiness with Tamara Zoner

Kevin Lowe: This, my friend, is episode 367. Now, as a quick reminder, if you would love a little help in being sure that this year is indeed the best year of your life, well, you got to go check out my free resource.

Kevin Lowe: It's called 14 Nuggets of Wisdom for a Better Life.

Kevin Lowe: I've created a free ebook plus an exclusive free podcast episode, all designed to help you make this year the best year of your life.

Kevin Lowe: A link is at the top of today's show notes where you can click to download, or you can also head on over to gritgraceinspiration.com, the website for the podcast, where you will also find a link to access that same resource.

Kevin Lowe: It's just my way of trying to help you make today a little bit better than yesterday.

Kevin Lowe: And of course, this year, the best year of your life.

Kevin Lowe: With that said, I hope you enjoy today's episode.

Kevin Lowe: Here's my interview with Tamara Zona. Hey, I'm your host, Kevin Lowe, and you are listening to Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

Kevin Lowe: What has happened to my friends? Welcome back to the studios here at Great Grace and Inspiration.

Kevin Lowe: Today, I have the pleasure of being joined by another amazing woman here in the studio with me, Tamara. Welcome to the podcast.

Tamara Zoner: Thank you. It's a joy to be here.

Kevin Lowe: Oh my goodness. Well, Tamara, I've been super excited for us to get to talk today and get to unpack really kind of, I guess I would say it, both kind of like this personal journey and professional journey that you've been on and all of this around this amazing topic of happiness.

Kevin Lowe: I want to ask a question to kick things off today.

Kevin Lowe: When we talk about happiness, do you think of happiness as a destination or is it part of the journey?

Tamara Zoner: It is the journey.

Tamara Zoner: Yeah, I think there's a big problem if we think that it's the destination because we're never going to get there. We're always here.

Tamara Zoner: And so if we can just plant our feet and know that happiness is a moment to moment practice, then we'll feel more of it.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah. Yeah. I love that so much. Well, then talking about the journey is, I always love to kind of go back a little bit. And so I'll let you decide where we pick up your story at.

Kevin Lowe: But what I'm curious is, is when you look back on this journey you've been on, was there any person, an event, even maybe just a period of your life that you feel like was really significant on getting you to where you are today?

Tamara Zoner: Yes. Yes and yes.

Tamara Zoner: The most significant point in my life where I feel like really where I am today began is about 15 years ago, where I really discovered and admitted to myself that I was not living for me.

Tamara Zoner: I was trying to be someone for someone else.

Tamara Zoner: And that was a glimmer. And then I continued for a few more years in this controlling, emotionally abusive marriage because we had had a third child and I didn't want to be a single parent.

Tamara Zoner: But as I had tried everything to fix the marriage, to make it better, to be who we wanted, and none of it worked, I finally turned back to myself and was like, well, I feel miserable.

Tamara Zoner: This isn't working for me. I hate life.

Tamara Zoner: I don't like me. and I'm supposed to be happy, right?

Tamara Zoner: Because I've got children and a husband and I'm living in another country.

Tamara Zoner: And like, ideally it should be a happy life, but it's not.

Tamara Zoner: And so when I started to kind of dig into what would make me happy, I stopped kind of the lying to myself of like, this will get better because it wasn't getting better.

Tamara Zoner: And I instead said, what do I need? now? What would make me feel happy?

Tamara Zoner: And I happen to at the same time, meet a woman who was a certified passion test facilitator.

Tamara Zoner: And when we first exchanged business cards, I didn't know what that was.

Tamara Zoner: I've never heard of it, but something in my whole body knew.

Tamara Zoner: I felt like shivers and chills. Like when you just know something is about to change or happen.

Tamara Zoner: That's how I felt when I read those words. And before I'd even taken what's called the passion test, I had signed up to become a certified facilitator.

Tamara Zoner: And it was really that process that helped me and still helps anybody I work with to identify what I wanted life to look and feel like.

Tamara Zoner: And the interesting thing for me at the time was that you make a list of 10 to 12 things that you want to be, do, feel, or have.

Tamara Zoner: And my family was on that list, but the process is getting down to the top five.

Tamara Zoner: And my family hit one of those.

Tamara Zoner: And the rest was about me feeling authentic, about me having confidence, about me having my own voice and friends because I had no friends because controlling husband.

Tamara Zoner: And so it was really awakening for me. It was eye-opening. It was heart awakening.

Tamara Zoner: Like, oh, I've been living this lie to try to make someone else happy who is never happy and never going to be happy with me.

Tamara Zoner: And now I get to choose something different.

Tamara Zoner: And as, and it's a long story shortish, but as I opened to what made me feel good and I stepped back into personal development and personal growth and really honoring myself, I was able to gather the courage to walk away from that painful, painful marriage and really step more fully into being who I am and reclaimed or remembered the joyful person that I naturally am.

Tamara Zoner: And so it was quite a process. But the reason I do this work is because I was desperately unhappy, but I could remember a version of myself with some natural happiness.

Tamara Zoner: And it was all about finding her again.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah. Now, how long were you in this relationship before you really started coming to this kind of awakening?

Tamara Zoner: 12 years and I left at 15 years.

Kevin Lowe: Wow. Now, how I don't even know how to frame the question of how were you able to to get out of such a relationship?

Kevin Lowe: Because obviously that takes extreme courage and strength on your part.

Kevin Lowe: What was that like for you?

Tamara Zoner: It was so hard, Kevin. It's so scary to be, especially as a parent, right?

Tamara Zoner: To be a parent of three young children who I had worked on and off, but we had moved from country to country. My ex-husband is French.

Tamara Zoner: So we weren't like, he wasn't attached to the United States where I'm from.

Tamara Zoner: And so we had lived in Asia. We had lived in the UK and I had this reoccurring thought that I was just stuck because how was I supposed to support three kids on my own? Where would we even live.

Tamara Zoner: And as I just became clearer and clearer on what I needed to do, which was to gather that courage to do something more for myself, synchronicity played a part.

Tamara Zoner: So I had gained enough confidence and courage to fight for coming home for a visit with my three kids and me, just us, just the four of us.

Tamara Zoner: My ex, still husband at the time, stayed in the UK where we were living because he needed to work and couldn't take the time off.

Tamara Zoner: And normally I didn't travel without him, but I've, I've fought for this one.

Tamara Zoner: I was like, I need to go home. I need to see my family.

Tamara Zoner: I need to see my friends. The kids need to see their family.

Tamara Zoner: And so he agreed. So we came back to Michigan, August of 2014.

Tamara Zoner: And after a few days, I noticed myself start to relax.

Tamara Zoner: Like I wasn't constantly bracing for the next outburst or what I was going to be in trouble for.

Tamara Zoner: And I started to relax and think, well, wow, here are these people around me who say they love me and they act like it too.

Tamara Zoner: And I was a brand new passion test facilitator at the time. So I had just gotten certified as a life coach, as a passion test facilitator.

Tamara Zoner: And so I wanted to practice my new skills on my family and friends who I hadn't seen in years.

Tamara Zoner: And I was giving a workshop and like any good abused spouse, I had informed my husband exactly what I'd be doing all day long, right?

Tamara Zoner: I'm not going to be answering my phone for three hours because I will be doing this workshop.

Tamara Zoner: So the unspoken words were, so please don't accuse me of things I'm not doing, but he did.

Tamara Zoner: So during the workshop, he called 24 times, 24 times until one of my friends picked up my phone and said, Tam, maybe it's an emergency. I think you might want to call your husband.

Tamara Zoner: And so I did. I went and I called him and I was like, is everything okay?

Tamara Zoner: And he just went on this rampage. And I thought to myself, oh my gosh, like here is the biggest sign.

Tamara Zoner: And if I miss it now, there's no hope for me Because he is showing me exactly who he is.

Tamara Zoner: And I am thousands of miles away and I don't ever have to go back to that.

Kevin Lowe: Hmm.

Tamara Zoner: And so, yeah, over the course of a few days, he demonstrated many ways why I did not need to return to that relationship.

Tamara Zoner: And I was so grateful, you know, as I look back and of course, in the moment, it's all scary and it's like, what am I going to do?

Tamara Zoner: And I don't want to go back to that.

Tamara Zoner: And parents, could you please let me stay here for a while in your basement with my three children? And so I am fortunate in the fact that I had family that I could ask for support from.

Tamara Zoner: And I recognize that not every person has that. And I feel very, very grateful and fortunate that I was able to lean on them and have a safe place for my children and I to stay.

Tamara Zoner: And then, you know, suck up my ego and ask for state assistance for a time because my ex, as soon as I decided to stay, cut me off from her bank accounts.

Tamara Zoner: So I had no money, three kids. And I was not so proud that I wasn't willing to ask for the social assistance that is available to a lot of us.

Tamara Zoner: And sometimes we're too proud.

Tamara Zoner: And so we keep ourselves stuck because we won't ask for help. But I did. And I got it.

Tamara Zoner: And that helped me get back on my feet and be where I am today, which is in a really amazing place.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah. Wow. It's such a powerful story. and I hope for anyone, man or woman listening to this today, who's in a relationship, as you have described, I hope that this can be that little spark that they need to hear today, that they don't have to stay.

Tamara Zoner: Me too, because it's only a belief in our mind that we're stuck.

Tamara Zoner: I held it for so long. I was so attached to the belief that I had to make that marriage work, that I was stuck in it, that I could never leave.

Tamara Zoner: My own parents will celebrate 60 years of marriage in December.

Tamara Zoner: So I thought I had to make this work, that I just had to deal with life, but that's not living.

Tamara Zoner: That's not living. And so if anybody listening is feeling stuck, like you don't know what to do, you don't have to know how to do it.

Tamara Zoner: You simply have to decide what you want.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah.

Tamara Zoner: I want to feel better.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah. Wow. Now, after that part had ended and you, you separated, you left your husband, you're back at home.

Kevin Lowe: How do you kind of begin to create a new kind of chapter for you, for your kids?

Kevin Lowe: How does that all pan out for you?

Tamara Zoner: One day at a time. And I really got clear on what I wanted my life to look and feel like. So I use the very process that I teach.

Tamara Zoner: So, you know, when my life is ideal, I am able to easily support my children in their emotional and physical growth.

Tamara Zoner: When my life is ideal, I am working in a job or a career that I love that makes me feel alive and step by step by step like that.

Tamara Zoner: So I, of course, I had kids to feed. So I did go, I was a brand new coach.

Tamara Zoner: So here I had just begun building my business in the UK. And now I was back here in Michigan, starting over from scratch.

Tamara Zoner: And eventually I was like, going to stay true to being a coach and not go get a J-O-B.

Tamara Zoner: But then I needed to feed my kids. And my parents were like, what are you doing, Tam, are you going to get a job?

Tamara Zoner: And so I started looking for positions that felt good.

Tamara Zoner: I didn't want to just do anything. I wanted to, for the first time in my life, to stay true to me, to stay authentic to me, to stay in integrity, because I had been out of it for so long.

Tamara Zoner: And so by the time I got a call from a senior community, I didn't even remember what I had applied for. It had been weeks.

Tamara Zoner: I was living on, I had state assistance. I had a little bit of savings from a tax return.

Tamara Zoner: And I finally got this call, went into a senior community to be interviewed for whatever position they had open. And I ended up in life enrichment and activities, which was a perfect fit for me.

Tamara Zoner: The place was five minutes from my house. So I could still watch my kindergartner get on the bus in the morning, go to work, be on time, even if I left late, and then be home in time for him to get back off of that bus.

Tamara Zoner: Or have my mother, who I was now living with my parents, meet him at the bus if I couldn't be there.

Tamara Zoner: So it wasn't me working around the clock. It was me still being able to be a present parent and have my children at home where I actually grew up, which was pretty amazing.

Tamara Zoner: So it's a big 10 acres of land so they could run and play and I'd have to watch them every second. And that was amazing.

Tamara Zoner: And then I still kept coaching and speaking on the side, running workshops here and there, but having fun in senior communities until finally I got another call from a friend who there was a full-time director of life enrichment position available at another senior community, an independent senior community, pretty luxury too.

Tamara Zoner: And so I interviewed for that job and had it within three days.

Tamara Zoner: And that really, now I was fully on my own feet.

Tamara Zoner: I was working more, but it was a fun job and it was definitely enriching.

Tamara Zoner: So one of my rules of life is to do things that light me up.

Tamara Zoner: I don't think any of us have to struggle through life. If we do, that's just our mind lying to us.

Tamara Zoner: And it's really actually so important that we do things that bring us light and joy and love, because that opens up a world of possibilities for us when we're in this energy of love.

Tamara Zoner: Then I think from my personal perspective, like a spirit or source or whatever you call that big guy in the sky or don't call, it doesn't matter to me.

Tamara Zoner: Then that greater being responds like, oh, you're doing good stuff for you here.

Tamara Zoner: I'll give you some more of it.

Tamara Zoner: And so life just kept getting more fun and more rich and until COVID hit, but that's a whole second segment of the story. Right.

Tamara Zoner: So I just took one day at a time and really allowed my heart to guide me?

Kevin Lowe: Yeah. Wow. Now, when I'm listening to you talk about this, the question I have when you talk about almost like talking to the person listening today and you So many times I think we get stuck in a rut.

Kevin Lowe: Like when you talk about like following what you really like, what you love, your passion is, what lights you up, what is fun.

Kevin Lowe: I think so many times as adults, we get stuck in the thing of what's it's it's the it's our job, whether we like it or not. we go to work, we do the job.

Kevin Lowe: And there's probably not even anything that most people can say that they have as even a hobby that they love or enjoy.

Kevin Lowe: What do you say to that person?

Tamara Zoner: Find that hobby. Like a lot of people have forgotten because you're right, we're weighed down by all the shoulds of adulthood. We're supposed to do this.

Tamara Zoner: We have this checklist that we're, you know, we have to get a degree or a good job or a career and then a house and then a partner, and then a family.

Tamara Zoner: And we think this is this prescribed way of being that we have to do the same.

Tamara Zoner: And so many times, and this is typical of my clients, they get to this point where they say, Tamara, I've checked all the boxes and I'm still not happy.

Tamara Zoner: Well, what is something that used to make you happy? So here's what I encourage people to tap into. What used to make you feel happy?

Tamara Zoner: What lights you up? Maybe you love true crime. Who cares?

Tamara Zoner: Maybe you love dancing. Maybe you love singing. That is one thing that I love doing that I had put up on a shelf because my husband told me I was too loud and I should be quiet.

Tamara Zoner: So I stopped singing, which is such a part of me.

Tamara Zoner: And once I left, once in a while, I'd go do karaoke.

Tamara Zoner: And guess what? I would feel so alive. I love it. So what's one thing?

Tamara Zoner: It can be small, it can be big, but it needs to be accessible so that you can do it on a regular basis that makes you feel alive.

Tamara Zoner: And I really don't care if it's watching funny cat videos on Instagram or taking a walk through the woods for five minutes.

Tamara Zoner: Or just sitting and remembering what you used to do and really allowing yourself to imagine or remember, because it's the same thing to the brain, what that felt like and feeling yourself come alive just that little bit.

Tamara Zoner: And then bonus points if you go do the thing. It could be laughing with your kids or your grandkids.

Tamara Zoner: I remember one of the first times that I had fun with my kids again after I left my marriage.

Tamara Zoner: We lived up on a hill with my parents where I was raised. And so we would sled to the bus stop in the winter.

Tamara Zoner: And it was so much fun. And I remember laughing as the sled was spinning around and around.

Tamara Zoner: And the four of us were going down, you know, a few times because we had time while we waited.

Tamara Zoner: And I remember laughing so hard and thinking, oh, my God, I'm having fun with my kids.

Tamara Zoner: I hadn't had fun in years and it was total abandon and joy and we're all meant to experience that at least sometimes.

Tamara Zoner: So to tune in to like, oh, what? Okay, right now nothing makes me feel alive, but what did?

Tamara Zoner: What did? What did I put away for the shoulds that maybe I could pull out for five minutes today?

Kevin Lowe: Yeah.

Tamara Zoner: Yeah.

Kevin Lowe: I love that so much. So in this kind of journey that you're taking us on, and I don't know if I'm going to skip too far ahead with this question, but I'm kind of curious is, so when did you become the lady? around happiness.

Tamara Zoner: So during COVID, so COVID hit my senior community and suddenly we were actually the first senior community in Michigan to have a positive COVID case.

Tamara Zoner: And I found out about it the day I went into work.

Tamara Zoner: And so, yeah, I laugh because that's my defense mechanism, right?

Tamara Zoner: So I get to work, we're on lockdown, all the residents who usually it's my job to bring them together in groups are now isolated in their apartments.

Tamara Zoner: And one of them wanders down kind of confused.

Tamara Zoner: It's independent living, but that didn't mean that everybody was like, you know, 100% cognitively functioning.

Tamara Zoner: One of the residents came down, was confused.

Tamara Zoner: And he was like, why do I have to be in my apartment?

Tamara Zoner: And so I just said, let me escort you back to your room and I'll, I'll explain it on the way.

Tamara Zoner: And so as I was walking him back to his apartment, you know, we didn't have any personal protection gear yet.

Tamara Zoner: We didn't know much at all about this COVID thing because it was March 17th of 2020.

Tamara Zoner: And it was all new and none of us really knew anything. And he was coughing.

Tamara Zoner: And so I'm trying to stay six feet away from him, like the news said to, But I'm walking a resident, you know, up to his apartment.

Tamara Zoner: I have to take an elevator with him because he can't do the stairs.

Tamara Zoner: To the third floor. And that was a Monday. And by Friday, I had symptoms.

Tamara Zoner: Two weeks later, that resident passed away.

Kevin Lowe: Oh, wow.

Tamara Zoner: Yeah. And because it was so new, of course, I didn't go to work.

Tamara Zoner: I didn't know. They weren't giving tests to young, healthy people.

Tamara Zoner: So I had a fever. I wasn't going to work.

Tamara Zoner: So I had some time. I had still been coaching and doing the passion testing on the side now and then.

Tamara Zoner: And it was still in my heart that that's what I wanted to be doing full-time.

Tamara Zoner: But I was struggling, too, to find a way to make it more accessible to people.

Tamara Zoner: Passion is kind of airy-fairy.

Tamara Zoner: And people think, oh, well, yes, but I'm supposed to be doing this other stuff.

Tamara Zoner: So I have responsibilities.

Tamara Zoner: Passion is a luxury. That is not true, my friends. Nevertheless, I honor that belief when it's out there.

Tamara Zoner: But there was this happiness training. I had read the book, Happy for No Reason.

Tamara Zoner: Years ago, as I was trying to find my way back to myself and gain that courage and confidence to leave my marriage.

Tamara Zoner: And I had seen Marcy Shymoff in the movie, The Secret, which is really a one-on-one don't take it to heart people.

Tamara Zoner: It's just a primer about, you know, manifestation and changing your life and creating what you want and all of that.

Tamara Zoner: And her ads kept popping up in my feed and in my email while I was sick from COVID.

Tamara Zoner: So I clicked the links as you do.

Tamara Zoner: And there was her training, her happiness, happy for no reason, certification training to become a happiness trainer.

Tamara Zoner: And I, it all just made sense to me. This was a really science backed approach to happiness where she had interviewed experts in the field.

Tamara Zoner: She had interviewed the happiest people she knew. And then she'd taken all of it, science plus personal stories, and put it together in one place with happy for no reason.

Tamara Zoner: So I went through her training. And I love it so much because it is really grounded in research.

Tamara Zoner: And I'm a Capricorn, and I'm an academic, and I like grounded scientific research and evidence paired with anything is possible.

Tamara Zoner: Manifestation, we can create what we want.

Tamara Zoner: So I decided to go through that training and then I as we opened up a little bit more and more and residents whenever there was were no cases of COVID in the building then I could have small groups together I could have up to 10 residents at a time in this large lecture room that we had all spaced out but I couldn't hire anybody and one of our our pillars was lifelong learning, And so normally I had art lectures and history lectures and all these wonderful things and people come in, but nobody could come in. So I started giving happiness lectures.

Tamara Zoner: I thought, why not practice on them to practice my own speaking skills, to really learn this material and the research and, and then share something that could work.

Tamara Zoner: Why have I been keeping my coaching self so separate from my director of life enrichment self when really it's all me and it's all good for them.

Tamara Zoner: So I started giving these lectures and almost all of my 130 residents eventually went through it.

Tamara Zoner: I taught it week after week, after week, after week, after week.

Tamara Zoner: And I had multiple residents tell me that I changed their lives.

Tamara Zoner: One specifically who said, Tamara, I've been so depressed and I didn't like the way medicine made me feel. I didn't like taking the pills.

Tamara Zoner: I couldn't see a way out of my depression, but you gave me a way out.

Tamara Zoner: Through practicing skills of happiness.

Tamara Zoner: And I thought, oh my gosh, I can't just keep this in the doors of the senior community.

Tamara Zoner: It's time for me to go full-time. And now I felt like I had a tangible way to reach more people.

Tamara Zoner: And I also had another really good tax return.

Tamara Zoner: So I had a little bit of a cushion that would get me through a few months of not having a steady paycheck.

Tamara Zoner: And I took the chance. I took the chance because I know now that the how is none of my business.

Tamara Zoner: My attention is to be on the what I want to create. And then I take action toward it.

Tamara Zoner: And the how shows up. That's the inspiration part, right? I've got the grit.

Tamara Zoner: There's some grace involved. And then I take inspired action and life unfolds better and better.

Tamara Zoner: And that doesn't mean it's without challenges or hard times or frustrating moments.

Tamara Zoner: But that's why I love this practice of happiness so much.

Tamara Zoner: Because if we simply tap into checking our mindsets, questioning our thoughts, this is huge.

Tamara Zoner: Most people don't. We have 60,000 thoughts a day on average.

Tamara Zoner: 95% of them are repeated day after day after day. I'm stuck.

Tamara Zoner: I'm stuck. I'm stuck. I can't, I can't, I can't.

Tamara Zoner: 80% of them are negative. But if we take a breath and create the space to question those thoughts, is that true?

Tamara Zoner: What does that belief serve me?

Tamara Zoner: What I'm thinking negative, all these negatives, like what are some positives?

Tamara Zoner: What's actually good in my life right now? We turn to a little bit of gratitude.

Tamara Zoner: We start practicing that.

Tamara Zoner: And slowly we shift toward more authentically positive.

Kevin Lowe: Hmm.

Tamara Zoner: I don't believe in fake it. I don't believe in fake or toxic positivity.

Tamara Zoner: I believe that you, every one of us has something good in our lives, no matter how hard it feels right now.

Tamara Zoner: And if we can just put more attention on that, then that's what grows stronger.

Tamara Zoner: That feeling, that open path, that what can I do instead of what can't I do?

Tamara Zoner: That's how we make changes in our lives.

Kevin Lowe: Wow. You referenced the term like skill.

Kevin Lowe: Now, do you view happiness itself is a skill or that there's skills involved to achieve happiness?

Tamara Zoner: Yeah, there are skills involved in experiencing happiness.

Tamara Zoner: And I don't think it's anything anyone has to achieve because if you really look at your life, your day, you've had some moments of happiness, right?

Tamara Zoner: It's not someplace to get to, but there are practical skills that help us build feelings of happiness so that we feel more content, more joy, happier, more often than we feel that the stuff we want to avoid, the negatives, but it's all important, right? It's all part of this human experience.

Tamara Zoner: And one of the things that I love to teach people is how to actually gently lean into those uncomfortable feelings that we don't want to have and to honor those too, because that's where we can grow.

Tamara Zoner: You know, if we talk everything under the rug, it gets pretty lumpy and suddenly it hurts to walk over that part of the floor.

Tamara Zoner: Eventually, we're going to have to do something.

Tamara Zoner: If we are willing and courageous enough to start to gently lean into any uncomfortable emotion, then we never are sweeping stuff under the rug.

Tamara Zoner: There's no big, big cleaning job that needs to happen because we're maintaining.

Kevin Lowe: Wow. I love it so very much.

Kevin Lowe: The whole thing of happiness, I guess the next thing is, is we continue to pick your mind around this whole thing of happiness is we, we talked earlier about fun, but what about, is there a difference do you feel between say happiness, fun, and joy? Yeah.

Kevin Lowe: Or are they all one in the same?

Tamara Zoner: I think they're all linked. I think that they're all variations of happiness or contentedness, right?

Tamara Zoner: So we can be overarchingly happy, but not necessarily feeling big moments of joy every moment.

Tamara Zoner: Or we could feel content, right?

Tamara Zoner: Like the definition that I still use today for happiness comes from Marcy Shymoff's book, Happy for No Reason. And it is an inner sense of peace and well-being that doesn't depend on circumstances.

Tamara Zoner: So this inner sense of peace and well-being. And that doesn't mean we're always just like skipping and laughing and having so much fun.

Tamara Zoner: It also means that sometimes we're just neutrally content, like at ease, fulfilled.

Tamara Zoner: And when the harder stuff hits then we have resources to move through them more easily and efficiently than maybe we used to maybe we used to get stuck in the down the fear the scarcity the lack the pain now if we have practiced the skills of happiness we can move through the hard stuff much more quickly and get back to, oh, I'm okay.

Tamara Zoner: And then when we're in that, I'm okay. It's easier to access feelings of joy.

Tamara Zoner: It's easier to lean into having some fun. If I'm miserable and I'm stuck there and someone invites me to do something fun, I'll probably decline so that I can stay in my misery. Right.

Tamara Zoner: But if I'm, fluid in my emotional states and willing to pass through and experience all of it, then if someone invites me to something that sounds fun, I'm more likely to say, okay, yeah, I'll try that.

Tamara Zoner: I deserve fun. I welcome fun. A lot of us don't even feel like we deserve to be having fun or joy because we should be doing something else.

Tamara Zoner: So I like to say bite-sized chunks are the key to big transformations so baby steps create big change so if you were feeling like there isn't any fun or you should be doing something responsible maybe you just take a bite of a little fun maybe you just uh skip through your living room or do I love Monty Python.

Tamara Zoner: So I had one client to access his sense of fun.

Tamara Zoner: I invited him every time he had to get up to the... He worked from home.

Tamara Zoner: So every time he had to get up to go to the bathroom or get a cup of water or a snack, he had to do a silly walk.

Tamara Zoner: That was his assignment for the week. And just something so simple brought him joy in those moments.

Tamara Zoner: He's getting up grumbling because his workday is hard. But then he's like, oh, yeah, I have to do a silly walk. And he does a silly walk as he walks to the kitchen. And now he's laughing.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah.

Tamara Zoner: It takes no time at all. It's nothing extra.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, I love that. Now, do you believe that some people are naturally, say, more happier than others?

Kevin Lowe: And therefore, this whole idea of kind of being happy, having happiness is easier for some than it is for others.

Tamara Zoner: Yes, I actually do. And also the science backs that up.

Tamara Zoner: So we have what researchers have started calling a happiness set point.

Tamara Zoner: And if I set my living room thermostat at 70 degrees, no matter how hot or how cold it gets outside, it's going to stay at 70.

Tamara Zoner: Maybe my happiness set point is the same.

Tamara Zoner: My sister's is lower than mine.

Tamara Zoner: I think I came in with a pretty high happiness set point, which is why I was able to recognize when I was so unhappy and go, wait a second, I wasn't always this way.

Tamara Zoner: So yes, some people have a lower set point than others and it's not fixed.

Tamara Zoner: We can crank it up. We can turn up the happiness heat through the practices and the skills of happiness, through checking your mindset, through opening your heart and forgiving instead of holding on to resentment, through taking care of your physical body with sleep and food and exercise, through all these different seven main areas of happiness.

Tamara Zoner: If we give our attention and start taking care of ourselves in those areas, those are the skills we practice, right?

Tamara Zoner: We actually can change our neurology to be happier.

Tamara Zoner: So we create neural pathways every time we do something new and we strengthen those neural pathways every time we repeat something.

Tamara Zoner: So most of us have really, really strong negative neural pathways, right?

Tamara Zoner: And that served us. That's why we evolved into this cozy, comfy civilization that most of us experience instead of living in caves and on rocks and running away from saber-toothed tigers.

Tamara Zoner: We were aware of the dangers, the brain pays attention to them so we can get away from them fast or avoid them in the future.

Tamara Zoner: Our brain hasn't evolved like civilization has. So our brain is still reacting as if everything's an emergency.

Tamara Zoner: And if we do nothing, if we just sleepwalk through life, like I think a lot of people do, then that's how we'll live.

Tamara Zoner: But if we take action to create more conscious awareness in our lives, in ourselves, then we can say, well, wait, I'm actually going to practice the skill of paying attention to what's good around me.

Tamara Zoner: So I'm going to stop right now and look around me and find three things that are good. Three positives.

Tamara Zoner: Like the dog is sleeping peacefully. The sun is shining through the window, lighting up my plant. And oh, look, my plant has new growth.

Tamara Zoner: I love that. That's great.

Tamara Zoner: Three good things right there. strengthening neural pathways toward the positive.

Tamara Zoner: And what we want to do and what happier people have done is exercise the positive neural pathways. We've worked them to strengthen them. So now they're stronger than the negative.

Kevin Lowe: Amazing. So powerful. I guess I'm listening to you and I'm like, wow, I never knew there was so much involved in happiness.

Tamara Zoner: And I love that awareness because that's the problem. I think most people don't realize it's anything we're supposed to work at, but it really is.

Tamara Zoner: If we want to feel good, we have to put effort forth into feeling good.

Tamara Zoner: I made a cute little meme one time about it, that misery is easy.

Tamara Zoner: It's happiness that takes effort.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, it is. I agree. I agree 100%.

Kevin Lowe: Now with all of this just bomb of knowledge you've dropped in our lap about happiness tell me what exactly are you doing today kind of fast forwarding in this journey we we we talked about the last time that you were still working with the seniors and then you you realized you had to take this show on the road and so where has it led to

Tamara Zoner: So today I speak and coach almost full-time, however much I want to.

Tamara Zoner: And I have private clients, group clients. And this year I did my first retreat.

Tamara Zoner: It was amazing. So I'm repeating it in 2025. In May, 2025, I'll be doing a radiant happiness retreat right here in beautiful, pure Michigan.

Tamara Zoner: And it's something I love to do so much is to really help people build the skills to be happier, to be more loving, kind and compassionate to themselves.

Tamara Zoner: And so that's what I do primarily. I also have recently taken on yoga teacher training.

Tamara Zoner: I'm a meditation teacher already and I've been doing yoga for the last 30 years and I walked into a studio last October.

Tamara Zoner: It's been just a year and I haven't left since essentially it's around the corner from my house. I started doing my meetups there.

Tamara Zoner: I run their wellness weekends. So I talk about all of these things in a slightly longer format, a workshop format, and teach people the skills and actions and habits of happiness.

Tamara Zoner: And soon I'll be adding yoga to my tool belts for others so that I can teach and guide others in movement as well, because that's such a vital part of our well-being.

Tamara Zoner: I love it so much. So that's how I play, Kevin.

Tamara Zoner: I get to help people tap into what makes them feel alive and then teach them the skills to back it up so that they can actually create a life they love.

Tamara Zoner: Now, not like 10 years in the future, but today.

Kevin Lowe: Well, thank you for segwaying perfectly into my next question because you, I guess, is it your brand, But it's called A Life You Love Now.

Kevin Lowe: And what I wanted to ask when I when I read that is, how do you get that?

Kevin Lowe: How do you how do you get a life that you love?

Tamara Zoner: You first have to get clear on what that would look like and feel like for you.

Tamara Zoner: So that's where the passion test comes into play, is identifying what would make you feel really good in your life.

Tamara Zoner: Like, what do you want your relationships to look like? Like relationships with others and relationships with self.

Tamara Zoner: Most important relationship with self. What do you want your environment to look like? Your career, your spiritual relationship, your health, your well-being, who do you see in the mirror?

Tamara Zoner: Do you like them or do you want to like them?

Tamara Zoner: So we start there and you can love your life now.

Tamara Zoner: This is why I put the, originally I put the now on the end of that because the creative the life you love and a life you love wasn't available as a domain.

Tamara Zoner: So again, I say it's synchronicity at play, but I added the now and that is the thing that impacts most people.

Tamara Zoner: They say, I really loved the now part because it made it really present because you can love your life now.

Tamara Zoner: You don't have to love every part of your life now, but there are parts of your life that you probably love now.

Tamara Zoner: And when we are mired in the misery, it's harder to see those and feel those, the good stuff.

Tamara Zoner: And so what I want people to know is that all you have to do is start looking for it and you'll start to see it and to feel it.

Tamara Zoner: And so that now means we're not working.

Tamara Zoner: We are working on future goals when I work with clients and we're experiencing them now, right now.

Tamara Zoner: You can smile and you can feel the effects of that right now.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, I love that so much because that is, it's such a simple word, yet it holds such impact of the word now that it can happen right now.

Kevin Lowe: And I think, if anything, I hope for the person listening today who's maybe struggling, that maybe that can give them some hope is that it's not something that has to be far off. It can happen right now.

Kevin Lowe: Yes. Yeah. For somebody who would love to learn more about you and what you do and to get plugged in with your world, where can we send them?

Kevin Lowe: What can we tell them? Give me all the details.

Tamara Zoner: I play a lot on Facebook and Instagram, so you can find me there.

Tamara Zoner: And my name is fairly unique. I don't think there's any more than one other Tamara's owner in the whole world.

Tamara Zoner: And she puts everything in Spanish, so that's not me.

Tamara Zoner: So she probably also pronounces her name differently and you can look at tamra's owner.com we'll take you to my website at life you love now.com facebook meetup if you happen to be local to the detroit metro area i do a lot of in-person events i love a good hug so we we meet up a lot in person and that's how you can get in touch with me and i do offer a free 30 minute session to help people kind of get on their pathway to happiness.

Tamara Zoner: And you will walk away with a tool today that will help you ask access joy, access possibility, access loving your life right now.

Tamara Zoner: If you're open to it, if you're willing.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah. Amazing. Well, I have just one last question for you today.

Kevin Lowe: And it's something that I actually thought about while we were talking is say that you're working on this yourself about focusing on happiness in creating a happier life.

Kevin Lowe: How can somebody try to get their family involved in this also so that they're not just doing it alone, whether they're a single mom and it's their kids or whether it's a couple married and no children?

Kevin Lowe: Whatever the family dynamic is, is there any advice that you would give to them of how to get everybody possibly involved?

Tamara Zoner: I love that question so much because it is so hard to do it all alone.

Tamara Zoner: So a couple of different answers for the single parents, get your kids involved, invite them to be team players.

Tamara Zoner: So when I was in all my misery and really realizing that I needed to change my life, it was because I was yelling at my kids.

Tamara Zoner: That was my big indicator of I am not okay right now. I'm yelling at these beautiful, precious beings.

Tamara Zoner: And so one of my first decisions was to stop yelling.

Tamara Zoner: And when I learned a little bit more, I put my attention on speaking with loving kindness to my children.

Tamara Zoner: And so I asked them to help me with that.

Tamara Zoner: I said, we're a team and I am trying to, to be kinder and to respond slower and not react to you guys when I, when something upsets me. So I'm wondering if you could help me with that.

Tamara Zoner: Here's how you can help. So I gave them specific information. Here's how you can help.

Tamara Zoner: You could actually do what I asked you to do.

Tamara Zoner: Right kids you could if you see me getting frustrated maybe come and give me a hug you know whatever i knew would work for me and my my my oldest was so brilliant at that she would see me getting upset with a younger sibling and she would come over and hug me and it worked every time but if you don't like that then you give them different directions a spouse or a partner or a close friend, like accountability is so vital for us. This is why coaches are coaches, right?

Tamara Zoner: We know how hard it is. I know from personal experience, how hard it is to make these big changes and stick with them.

Tamara Zoner: Alone. It's really hard because the brain loves status quo, even if it doesn't feel good.

Tamara Zoner: So it's very important to have an accountability partner.

Tamara Zoner: And if it's your spouse or a close friend, or even a colleague, you can say, Hey, I'm, I'm working on this.

Tamara Zoner: Would you like to work on it together?

Tamara Zoner: But then get specific and make it tangible and measurable.

Tamara Zoner: So if I say I'm working on noticing more good in my life.

Tamara Zoner: Okay. That's, that's great. And that's kind of fluffy.

Tamara Zoner: So here's the action I'd like to take.

Tamara Zoner: Oh, every day at four o'clock, could we meet and share, uh, three good things from our experience today?

Tamara Zoner: Okay. So like at my dinner table, every night I ask my family and now I have a wonderful partner who is healthy.

Tamara Zoner: What was the best part of your day? And sometimes they struggle to come up with something. And sometimes there's an overflow of, oh, how can I choose just one thing?

Tamara Zoner: But the whole point is to simply put their attention on something good in their day. So we go through reflecting on the day.

Tamara Zoner: Oh, that was good. My friend made me laugh or somebody held the door open for me.

Tamara Zoner: Or like last night for me, the gatekeeper at the guard house of my kids when they're with their dad, he flirted with me and that was super funny and fun.

Tamara Zoner: So, you know, it was like, oh, why haven't I seen you around before?

Tamara Zoner: And I was like, I usually come earlier in the day. And he said, well, I get off at 10 since you're here late.

Tamara Zoner: And it was so cute and sweet and fun. So like just noticing the moments of your day that are good and sharing it with your partner or friend or accountability partner, whoever that is, and deciding together, Even if it's just for five minutes a day, you're going to really put your attention on the good stuff in your life.

Tamara Zoner: Or maybe you're at work and you say, hey, I'd like to have a five-minute dance party every day at 1.15.

Tamara Zoner: Are you in? Will you come dance with me?

Tamara Zoner: And you do that. It can be so easy. And I really, really feel that the smallest actions are the most sustainable because we don't overwhelm our system with a big leap, it's really hard for our brains to sustain big change all at once.

Tamara Zoner: We need to take baby steps to allow our whole nervous system to move along at a pace that's comfortable for the subconscious mind.

Tamara Zoner: Its job is to protect us and it doesn't always work out the way we want it.

Tamara Zoner: So having a partner in transformation is so important.

Tamara Zoner: So I'd love that you ask that question. Just tell them what you want.

Tamara Zoner: Ask them if they're on board and then create a daily action together and then hold each other accountable in it.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah. And, you know, what I picked up on was one of the most simplest things that we could possibly do is change up the way we frame our questions is it's so common when everybody gets home in the evening, you say, oh how was your day and we default to all the negative bad stuff that happened instead asking hey what was the best part about your day It just flips that script in the whole conversation and changes the whole mood. And I just love that.

Tamara Zoner: I love that. That is one of my favorite things. I'll teach people to ask what's good with you instead of how are you?

Kevin Lowe: Yes. Yes. I love it.

Tamara Zoner: Immediately framed for the positive. And then people are like, what's good with me?

Tamara Zoner: It's great.

Kevin Lowe: Absolutely. Well, my goodness. Well, Tamara, it has been an absolute pleasure today to get to hear a little bit about your story, but also just to get to soak up some of your amazing wisdom around a subject that's so simple, yet so important of happiness.

Kevin Lowe: And it has been an absolute joy to have you. And so thank you.

Tamara Zoner: You're so welcome. Thanks for having me. I truly believe that this feeling of happiness is accessible to everyone.

Tamara Zoner: And sometimes it just takes some practice and someone to light the way and say, it's possible for you. I know it because I've been miserable.

Tamara Zoner: And now I'm one of the happiest people I know. And you can be too.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, absolutely. Well, for you listening today, if you would love to learn more about this amazing woman, And be sure to check out today's show notes, where I will leave all the links to everything she mentioned so that you can get plugged into her world.

Kevin Lowe: And hey, if nothing else, I hope you heard today's episode and maybe put a smile on your face and maybe try that today.

Kevin Lowe: Walk around with a smile. People are going to look at you weird and ask what's wrong with you, but maybe they also will start smiling.

Kevin Lowe: And maybe we can start in kind of infecting the world with a little bit of goodness, a little happiness. I think it would go a long way.

Kevin Lowe: So until next episode, I'm Kevin Lowe. And of course, this was another episode of Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

<v Music>