Crappy to Happy

When a crisis turns your world upside down, what do you do? Last week we talked about how to make a big decision. This week I'm talking about when the decision gets made for you. You lose the job or the relationship or the house, or you get a diagnosis you didn't see coming, and suddenly the change you never asked for is here and completely out of your control.

One of my favourite quotes is 'never let a good crisis go to waste'. I'm not asking you to look for a silver lining while you're in the thick of it. But a crisis can also be a rare opportunity to re-examine everything and decide what you want to rebuild, and it's the moment you find out how much of your personal growth work holds up under pressure.

I'm sharing what you can do to give yourself the best chance of coming out of this situation stronger. If you're going through something hard right now, or looking back on it, I hope this gives you something to hold on to.

What you'll learn
Why you can feel relieved and devastated at the same time, and both are valid
What a crisis reveals about how far you've really come
How fight, flight, freeze and fawn show up when things fall apart
The attitudes researchers have linked to growth after adversity
What changes in your body and mood when you see stress as a good thing
Why your mood in a crisis makes a lousy fortune teller
The questions to ask yourself about what to rebuild from the rubble

Resources mentioned
Last week's episode on making a big decision when you're overthinking it: https://crappytohappypod.com/s18e1
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

If you enjoyed this episode, hit follow wherever you listen so you never miss one. If you know someone going through something hard, please share it with them. And I'd love it if you left a five-star rating and review. ⭐️
Connect with Cass:
www.cassdunn.com
www.instagram.com/cassdunn_xo

Contact Crappy to Happy:

Email: hello@crappytohappypod.com
www.crappytohappypod.com
www.instagram.com/crappytohappypod
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Stuck on a big life decision? Let’s talk about the psychology of decision making. Whether you're weighing up a job, relationship, starting a business or buying a house, big decisions have a way of keeping you stuck on the fence. In this episode I'm explaining why your pros and cons list is no help, and how your predictions of how happy you'll be depending on what you decide are wildly unreliable, and why we usually default to the status quo even if it makes us miserable rather than take a risk on the unknown.

If you're going around in circles on whether to make a change or take the plunge, tune in to hear which information you should discard and what to pay attention to if you want to come to a decision that gives you the best chance of satisfaction in the long term.

What you'll learn:

Why change feels so hard, even when you want it
The reason your pros and cons list is not helping you at all
The science of predicting how you'll feel in the future (and how much we underestimate our own resilience)
what happened when 22,000 people let a coin toss decide for them
The decision making formula that is most likely to get you closer to an outcome you'll be happy with.
Connect with Cass:
www.cassdunn.com
www.instagram.com/cassdunn_xo

Contact Crappy to Happy:

Email: hello@crappytohappypod.com
www.crappytohappypod.com
www.instagram.com/crappytohappypod
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's nice to feel content, peaceful and satisfied with life. But how long do you let yourself feel any of those things before you get twitchy?

Let's talk about why you might find it so challenging to allow yourself to feel content. It might be guilt, or a fear that you'll get complacent, a history of struggle that makes peace feel foreign to you, or a core belief that you're not worthy or deserving of ease.

Takeaways:

The difference between contentment and happiness
How our conditioning to strive and achieve makes rest feel like a threat
Why your brain might resist pleasant feelings
Why joy and peace can feel uncomfortable when you try to access them
The worthiness blocks that keep you from feeling okay with your own life
How waiting for the worst robs you of joy
Why cultivating contentment from the inside is the only version that lasts

Connect with Cass:
www.cassdunn.com
www.instagram.com/cassdunn_xo

Contact Crappy to Happy:

Email: hello@crappytohappypod.com
www.crappytohappypod.com
www.instagram.com/crappytohappypod
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you’re feeling a little bored and uninspired, I get it. I noticed recently that after 9 years of podcasting, ideas were not flowing and creativity felt like a chore. (This is normal of course.) But after spending two days out of the office at The Podcast Show last week, I’ve discovered renewed enthusiasm.

I realised that getting out of my bubble was exactly what I needed, so I’m sharing some ideas that might help you tap into some of that inspiration and spark up your interest and energy again. Whether you work for yourself, work from home, or just spend a lot of time alone at a laptop, there is some science that can point us in the right direction. I’m sharing some of that science, some practical ideas, and things that have helped me personally.

What you'll learn

What's happening in your brain when you're in a rut - and why pushing harder often makes it worse
Why getting out of your usual environment does more than change the scenery (there's actual neuroscience here)
How to engineer novel experiences without booking a flight (by all means, feel free to also book a flight)
Why being around people who can help is the first thing we cut when when we're busy - and why that's a mistake
Simple ways to shift your workspace and change your energy
Why your brain generates better ideas when it has space to breathe - and how to give it that
Connect with Cass:
www.cassdunn.com
www.instagram.com/cassdunn_xo

Contact Crappy to Happy:

Email: hello@crappytohappypod.com
www.crappytohappypod.com
www.instagram.com/crappytohappypod
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you've ever wondered whether your sleep tracker is actually accurate, or whether meditation is doing anything measurable in your brain, this episode is for you.  Ariel Garten is the co-founder of Muse, the brain-sensing headband, and she's back on the show with a significant update on how the technology has evolved. The Muse Athena contains an entirely new technology called fNIRS that tracks real-time blood flow and oxygen delivery to your prefrontal cortex.

We get into why wrist-based devices like Oura and Apple Watch can only ever estimate your sleep stages - because they're guessing from heart rate and movement, not brainwave data, whereas the Muse measures deep sleep at 94% accuracy compared to a clinical sleep lab. It's Deep Sleep Boost feature uses barely-audible pink noise pulses to increase the amount of time you spend in deep, restorative slow-wave sleep. We also go into ADHD territory. Both Ariel and I are diagnosed, and we talk about what neurofeedback and meditation training can do for focus, executive function, and the near-constant urge to abandon tasks halfway through.

What you'll learn
Why wrist-based sleep trackers can't accurately measure deep sleep, and how EEG-based tracking changes the picture
What deep sleep actually does for your brain and body - and why it matters for memory, cognitive function, and reducing the risk of Alzheimer's
How the Deep Sleep Boost feature uses tiny pink noise pulses synced to your delta waves to deepen your sleep (and why your bed partner won't even hear it)
What your alpha peak frequency is, why it tends to decline with age, and how you can track and potentially maintain it through neurofeedback
What fNIRS technology is and why training your prefrontal cortex to demand more oxygen could be important for long-term brain health
How Muse's neurofeedback and meditation tools can support focus, attention, and executive function - and what this means if you have ADHD
The full range of content in the Muse app, including over 500 guided sessions covering sleep, stress, relationships, focus, and more
How the app's AI assistant, ENSO, can help you interpret your data, track trends over time, and find the right tools for your goals
Resources mentioned

Muse headband:
www.choosemuse.com/
(enter code cassdunn at checkout for 15% off)

Previous episode with Ariel Garten (2019) 
https://www.crappytohappypod.com/wearable-technology-for-your-brain-with-ariel-garten/

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www.cassdunn.com/bc2

Connect with Cass:
www.cassdunn.com
www.instagram.com/cassdunn_xo

Contact Crappy to Happy:

Email: hello@crappytohappypod.com
www.crappytohappypod.com
www.instagram.com/crappytohappypod
Connect with Cass:
www.cassdunn.com
www.instagram.com/cassdunn_xo

Contact Crappy to Happy:

Email: hello@crappytohappypod.com
www.crappytohappypod.com
www.instagram.com/crappytohappypod
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.