Scroll down for a transcription of this episode. 

When we remember the times someone had our back, it changes the way we view ourselves and the world. Our guest explores what happens when trying a practice to feel more supported.

Episode summary:

Ever since he was a young child, José Valladares has spent his life caring for others and has taken pride in supporting his family and community, For our show, he tried a practice where he recalled people in his life who he can turn to during a difficult moment — the people who support him. As he wrote about their admirable qualities and specific instances where they helped him, José felt a renewed sense of gratitude and energy to persist forward in helping others. Later, we hear from psychologist Angela Rowe about how feeling supported can impact our relationships and sense of personal empowerment.

Practice:

1. Make a list of the people who offer you comfort or security. 
2. Write down six positive qualities that are common to some or all of these people.
3. Next, recall and visualize a specific situation when you felt distressed or worried, and one of these people comforted and helped you.
4.  Write a brief description of that situation and how you felt during it.

Learn more about this practice at Greater Good In Action:

https://ggia.berkeley.edu/practice/feeling_supported

Today’s guests:

José Valladares is a software engineer in Utah originally from Honduras. 

Angela Rowe is a psychology professor at the University of Bristol.

Learn more about Angela’s work: https://tinyurl.com/4nh752ad

Resources from The Greater Good Science Center:

Happiness Break: Who Takes Care of You? With Dacher Keltner: https://tinyurl.com/bdezwwyd

How to Let Someone Love You (The Science of Happiness Podcast): https://tinyurl.com/5xtzbzj2

Four Ways Social Support Makes You More Resilient: https://tinyurl.com/2p9zkjpj

Just One Thing: Feel the Support: https://tinyurl.com/yrfnmwfv

Friend or Family? https://tinyurl.com/msbs2kuh

More Resources on Feeling Supported

NYT Times – Are You Anxious, Avoidant or Secure? https://tinyurl.com/yes746sv

The Atlantic – The Trait That ‘Super Friends’ Have in Common: https://tinyurl.com/bdheumdh

BBC – Why friendship makes us healthier: https://tinyurl.com/3596n4u7

TED – How to ask for help — and get a “yes”: https://tinyurl.com/2ybrmt7m

Stanford – Asking for help is hard, but people want to help more than we realize, Stanford scholar says’: https://tinyurl.com/4n4hraj5′

Who do you turn to for support in your life? Email us at happinesspod@berkeley.edu or use the hashtag #happinesspod.

Help us share The Science of Happiness!

Rate us on Spotify and share this link with someone who might like the show: https://tinyurl.com/b6779syt

Transcript

José Valladares: My family couldn’t afford a lot of things, and that’s the life that I had in Honduras. A very humble, poor situation. We went days without having enough food.  We had to share if we had three eggs, we have to share it with all of us. We were 10 children. I went to public school down there. I started working when I was, 12 years old, to support and help my mom. Later on I was able to get my green card, and eventually I become a US citizen. And I moved here in West Valley City, in Utah. 

But I consider myself the glue of the family. And I have always been in touch with all of them, and I keep an eye on all of them. Back in my mind I was thinking, I don’t need help. I always the one that help. But actually, it’s not always that way. 

We all need help at one point or another.

Dacher Keltner: Welcome to The Science of Happiness, I’m Dacher Keltner. 

Today we’re exploring a practice that can make us feel more supported, and in turn can help us act more compassionately and altruistically.

Our guest today, José Valladares, has spent his whole life helping others. But he hadn’t ever really thought much about who has been supporting him over the years.

Sometimes we need to do a little extra work to really take in what others are doing for us. That’s where today’s practice comes in. It’s called feeling supported It takes about 15 minutes to do. And the literature suggests it’s worth the time. We hear from José about how it felt to reflect on his own support systems, and later, we’ll also hear from psychologist Angela Rowe about what  feeling supported can do for  our frame of mind, our relationships, and our sense of well-being.

Angela Rowe: It gives you  trust in others, but also a sense of agency in yourself and this is a very valuable thing to have.

Dacher Keltner: My conversation with José, after these ads.

Welcome back to The Science of Happiness, I’m Dacher Keltner. 

This week we’re exploring a practice where we reflect on our support systems.

Research suggests that the feeling of being cared for gives us the resources we need to support other people around us. It’s a cycle of giving and receiving.

José Valladares has always been one to help out others, including his 9 siblings, to make sure everyone feels supported.

For our show he flipped things around and tried a practice to make sure that he, himself, feels like he’s supported, as well. 

José joins us from West Valley City, Utah to share how it went. 

José, thanks so much for joining us on the Science of Happiness.

José Valladares: Oh, I’m glad to be here.

Dacher Keltner: When our producers first asked you to do a practice, in feeling supported, I’m curious what your reaction was. Did this practice feel natural to you? Did it feel easy to access? 

José Valladares:I believe the serving is the best medicine for someone to always be happy. So at first I thought, no, this don’t apply to me. Because I’m always thinking I’m the one that always help. But actually, I started doing it, and then I realized that that applied to me more than I thought and I started thinking about multiple situations where I actually been, reaching out for help. Without me realizing that.

Dacher Keltner: The first step of the practice is to make a list of who makes you feel supported. We give you some questions that jog your memory. Like who is the person you like to spend time with? Who is the person you turn to, like you said, when you feel blue or down, and who do you wanna share successes with? What was the, what was this step like for you? This first step of feeling supported and who came to mind? 

José Valladares: Actually my list was longer than I thought. I think I have like about  eight people and I was thinking that. This list can be longer. But see, I didn’t realize that before because I was, in a way, I was in denial that I need help from other people. But I have a couple of friends that has always been there for me. And also I rely a lot on my siblings.

My youngest brother, Ezekiel, is one of the ones that I always go to because, he has a very open mind and he’s a very good listener. Definitely I rely on some people when I feel down, when I have challenging situations, I go to people, and I am able to talk to them and sort things out in my heart and in my mind, and that’s when I started thinking about people that actually has always been there for me and helping me. 

When I came to the United States there were families that helped me. Elison family and Theran family. Barbara Elison, she was so nice to me when I came to United States. She was incredibly helpful. I think they enjoy doing that because they wanna help. Not because they wanna get something in return because it’s natural on them. It’s something natural that is born within themselves. And I believe that they have joy. They enjoy helping others. 

It was a good experience for me. And, I was able to open up actually to myself thinking we all need help at one point or another. 

Dacher Keltner: We definitely do. And, it’s so interesting, José, because researchers in the UK find that even just being reminded of the people who support you can make you feel energized. And it seems like when you came to those eight people who support you, it gave you some strength. The next step in the practice of feeling supported is to write down six positive qualities that these people share. What did you write?

José Valladares: My first one that came to mind was, loyalty and unconditional love. Also I thought about being sincere, being there always for you. Loving you no matter what. And a caring person. Those were the thought that came to mind.

Dacher Keltner: When you thought about these qualities of, of the people who support you, how’d it make you feel?

José Valladares:  I felt blessed. I felt lucky. I felt I have a network of people that are there for me  and make my life better. And that contributes to my happiness. It’s not about just what I do for other people that make me happy. It’s about sharing all these experiences and getting the support from them that actually make my life better.

Dacher Keltner: The practice then asks you to write these stories out and how you felt about them. And, you know, writing in the literature or what we call expressive writing, where you really sort of provide narrative structure to feelings that are hard and feelings of joy and gratitude or being supported or powerful.

 What was it like to write these stories out for you?

José Valladares: You know, I’m not that type of person that will write feelings.  But since these questions were so specific about searching deep down yourself. That, made me think about some of the things that are important in my life, and I realized that when you write down your feelings or your thoughts or your experiences – give you a different perspective, give you something to think about it, give you a more detailed, emotion because just thinking about it. It is good that writing them down, put emotions that are there, but you never felt them. 

Dacher Keltner: It’s medicine. You know, it’s so interesting to me the urge to share, um, the feelings that come out of some of these practices. I’m curious, José, just broadening on that observation of yours, did you notice.  Anything shifting after you did this practice in, in your work in your relationships, in terms of your energy or your commitments or your sense of purpose?

José Valladares: Yes, I felt that I could do more. 

I felt that I have a lot to offer  and I in a way, there was an extra energy, deep down inside myself  that  encouraged me to keep going forward because there are moments where I feel tired, down. And so that perspective of saying, I’m not a perfect person,  I need help too. I reach out for help. I’m grateful for these families that has helped me.

And they can tell that by helping me, they are helping others because this is like a network is like the domino, you know, thing that if you touch one, eventually all the other pieces will be in a way touched. So,, I believe that they know that and they are happy that I help my family and I help other people and I’m in a position where I can help others.

Dacher Keltner: How did you feel at the end of all of this, José?

José Valladares: I realized that that practice was something good for me. Because open up a new perspective that I hadn’t experienced. It made me happy. That’s how I felt.

Dacher Keltner: José, we’re very grateful that you joined our show, and thank you so much for your wonderful reflections on the feeling supported practice.

José Valladares: Well, thank you for giving me this opportunity because it has helped me.

Dacher Keltner: We have instructions on how to do the Feeling Supported practice in our show notes – but here’s a 30 second recap:

First, make a list of everyone who gives you a feeling of comfort or security.

Next, write out the positive qualities of these people – what you appreciate about them.

Then, recall a specific situation, a time where they made you feel really supported. 

And finally, write out what happened –  paint the scene, and describe how they made you feel.

After the break, we hear from psychologist Angela Rowe about how feeling supported can benefit us in so many different dimensions of our lives. 

Angela Rowe: You approach the interpersonal world with trust and confidence that others will be there for you.

Dacher Keltner: More, after this break. 

Welcome back to The Science of Happiness, I’m Dacher Keltner. We’ve been talking about how to feel more supported, and the benefits of doing so.
Our producer Haley Gray spoke with psychologist Angela Rowe about how reflection practices like this one can improve our sense of safety in relationships, and so much more.

Here’s Haley.

Haley Gray: Feeling supported actually changes the way we think and how we act.

Angela Rowe: You see things differently when you are in a different attachment style,  and that’s really clear.

Haley Gray: Angela Rowe is a psychology professor at The University of Bristol in England, where she studies attachment – the unconscious and conscious ways our connections with others impact us.

When we feel more alone in the world, less supported we tend to behave in ways that affect our relationships and our own happiness for the worse. 

But as we’ve been talking about … Feeling supported in our relationships has the opposite effect. 

Angela Rowe: People think different things. You approach the interpersonal world with trust and confidence that others will be there for you.

Chances are we’ve all had or have solidly secure relationships with one attachment figure or another and by asking people to visualize or write about specific relationships.

It puts you in that frame of mind.

Haley Gray: Rowe and her colleagues wanted to know if reflecting on someone who supports us would change how we approach challenges … in this case, learning to meditate.

Angela Rowe: Some people find mindfulness very difficult and it’s supposed to be hard, but some people interpret that as failure.

Haley Gray: Her team recruited 117 adults and divided them into three groups:

The first group wrote about someone who makes them feel secure and supported.

Another did a self-compassion practice,

And the last group visualized a time they went shopping.

Angela Rowe: And then our mindfulness naive participants, ’cause none of them had done any mindfulness training before.  Did a mindfulness session, and then they rated the extent to which they’d be happy to do it all over again. 

Haley Gray: Unsurprisingly, thinking about shopping had no effect.

Both self-compassion and feeling supported led people to be more interested in continuing to learn to meditate – difficult though it was. But the practices worked in different ways.

While self-compassion made people more mindful, feeling secure in a relationship made people believe in themselves.

Angela Rowe: But when you prime someone with security, it gives you a kind of a trust in others, but also a sense of agency in yourself. A feeling of self empowerment. 

Haley Gray: That combination of self-empowerment and trust in others, is what Rowe says makes all the difference.

Angela Rowe: Being able to have agency, which is really valuable. But also feeling safe and feeling accepted in some way by the world. When the poo hits the fan, as we say, we can’t cope on our own. So taking some time to think about those really important relationships and the people that are really important in your life is invaluable. And it’s not just important to that relationship. It goes beyond that because by rehearsing these feelings of feeling safe and secure within a relationship, then you reinforce your sense of it in the world. And so we mustn’t forget to do that.
Dacher Keltner: Thanks, Haley.

Next time on The Science of Happiness … What does it take to work together across the great political divide?

Jo Anna Dossett: I thought, well, I have a couple of options here. I can try to teach the senator that’s just simply not how that works. But I said I understand your fear. What can I do to calm it? And he told me what he needed, and so right then and there I have the senators vote.

Dacher Keltner: We learn about the science and practice of bridging differences. 

I’m Dacher Keltner, thanks for joining us on The Science of Happiness. Our executive producer of Audio is Shuka Kalantari. Our producer is Haley Gray. Sound design is from Jennie Cataldo of Accompany Studios and our associate producer is Maarya Zafar. And our executive director is Jason Marsh. The Science of Happiness is a co-production of UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center and PRX.