Interview: Where Happiness Actually Lives
When you think about the women you've mentored and taught over the years, what have you noticed they have in common in the moments they finally feel truly happy and at peace?
As a woman who has taught and mentored women for more than 35 years—and as a mother of four daughters—I’ve noticed that women are happiest when they are able to receive and give love. Amazingly, that aligns with the scientific research on happiness. The long-running Harvard Study of Adult Development has demonstrated the profound importance of loving relationships to human flourishing.
As a Catholic, and someone who works extensively with people of faith, I believe our most important relationship is with God because God is love. When we truly receive His love and allow it to flow through us to others, our circumstances no longer have to determine our happiness.
For me, genuine happiness can be distilled into something very simple: Happiness is love—first receiving the love of God and then sharing that love with others.
At the core of our being, we were created for relationship. Nothing—possessions, titles, accomplishments, or approval—can satisfy the deepest longing of the human heart. We first have to understand how truly, madly, and deeply we are loved by God. When we become saturated in that love, we stop asking other people and things to fill a space only God can fill.
The Women Who Shaped That Understanding
You've spent over thirty years building community among women. What is it about women supporting women that changes a person's capacity for joy?
Because we were created for love and relationship, something wonderful happens when women genuinely support one another. It’s like baking soda and vinegar—joy starts bubbling up and running over!
There is something incredibly powerful about being vulnerable in a safe place with trusted friends. From a faith perspective, I believe the Holy Spirit magnifies that joy—after all, joy is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. When a woman allows herself to become a conduit of God's love, even while walking alongside another person in suffering, there can be a deep sense of joy and purpose.
We discover that our lives are being used for something greater than our own comfort or pleasure. Again, I come back to the same truth: there is tremendous happiness in receiving God's love and passing it along.
As the mother of four daughters, what's the most important thing you hope they carry into adulthood about living a genuinely happy life?
More than anything, I want my daughters to know that they are deeply loved—first by God, then by us as their parents, and hopefully throughout their lives by spouses, family, and good friends.
Research on happiness continually points toward the importance of faith, family, friendships, meaningful work, purpose, and connection. I believe the family is our first school for learning these things.
That is one reason I wrote Living the BLESSED Life: Seven Keys to Trusting God and Embracing Joy. I use BLESSED as an acronym for simple habits that incorporate both timeless truths of our faith and what modern science is discovering about human flourishing. After practicing these habits myself for several years—and hearing from many others who have done the same—I can say they really can make a difference.
What Hardship Teaches
How do you tell the difference between healthy resilience and simply pushing pain down?
Ironically, I wrote Living the BLESSED Life after experiencing a profound tragedy. An arsonist broke into our home and set several fires, and we lost virtually everything. In the aftermath, I realized I was developing some unhealthy habits that were not leading me toward a joyful life.
There can be a danger in always being the “strong woman.” I was coping, by the grace of God, but not always in healthy ways. Eventually, God showed me that I needed to look directly at what had happened—at the fear, grief, and loss—and give it to Him rather than bury it, ignore it, or continually distract myself from it.
Ultimately, I offered that suffering to God for a very specific intention: the healing of the man who burned our home. As crazy as that might sound, facing the wound and giving it to God gave my suffering purpose and helped cleanse the bitterness from it.
I have watched other strong women do something similar: acknowledge their pain, offer it to God, and allow Him to use it. And we should never forget that God did not intend us to suffer alone. We have Him, but we also need one another. Strong, healthy, faith-filled friendships are a joy during good times and invaluable during times of distress. Investing in love and friendship is never wasted time.
The Small, Ordinary Things
Why do you think so many women lose easy access to laughter—and how do they get it back?
Life can be hard, and I think many women also want to be taken seriously. Sometimes laughter doesn’t fit the image we think we need to portray. That’s unfortunate because laughter is such a gift.
I am a natural-born worrier. I can have a million “What if?” scenarios running through my head. God has taught me to replace “What if?” with “Even if.” Even if this happens…even if that happens…I believe God will give me all the grace I need, even if that happens.
That simple change helps me relax, smile, and sometimes laugh at myself. I’m also intentional about what I allow into my mind—what I watch, listen to, and participate in. If something continually leads me down a dark path, I try to say no. If something wholesome leads toward joy—even if it requires a little or even a lot of effort—I try to say yes. Joy is worth cultivating.
In a world that prizes constant productivity, what happens when a woman never allows herself real quiet?
Eventually, something gives. I learned that the hard way. I used to work, work, work until I literally dropped. I rarely stopped the hamster wheel unless I was sick or completely exhausted.
The saints taught me the importance of daily prayer and Christian meditation. One simple practice I share in my book is what I call a “Spiritual Deep Breath.” Stop for a moment and consciously connect with God. Breathe out the anger, frustration, anxiety, or exhaustion, and breathe in while asking the Holy Spirit to fill you with what you need. Repeat it three times.
The Holy Spirit is the Breath of God, and with Him comes the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Sometimes we simply need to stop long enough to receive what God is already offering us. Be still and connect. It changes everything.
A Longer View
What do women throughout history teach modern women about happiness that we've perhaps forgotten?
One of the biggest lessons is incredibly simple: Nobody's life is perfect. Nobody's!
Social media makes it so easy to compare and despair. We look at another woman's life without knowing her whole story. Instead, we need to learn to be happy in our own story—the particular story God has given each of us.
God created every woman uniquely. Ask Him to show you the gifts He has placed within you and then celebrate them. There is no other you. So instead of trying to live someone else's life, ask God for the grace to become fully the woman He created you to be.
Happy women throughout history have understood that their lives have meaning and mission. As the saying goes, “Bloom where you are planted.” I would add: and you may be surprised by how much joy you find there!
How has your understanding of happiness changed since your twenties?
With the benefit of hindsight and experience, I understand happiness very differently now.
If I could sit down with my younger self, I would tell her: Love God with all your heart. Follow Him. Love people well. Be grateful for what you have. Be yourself. And smile—a lot!
And then I would tell her something I wish I had understood much earlier: God's got this. Things really do work out—not always the way you planned, but sometimes in ways far better than you could have imagined.
Closing
What do you hope women navigating an uncertain or difficult chapter take away from your journey about happiness?
I hope they understand that, to a meaningful extent, happiness involves choices. We can choose to trust God and cultivate habits that lead toward greater joy, or we can repeatedly choose habits that pull us away from it. Our circumstances certainly affect us, sometimes profoundly, but they do not have to have the final word.
And we do not have to obey every emotion we experience. I like to say: Emotions are great indicators but terrible dictators. We can acknowledge what we feel without allowing those feelings to run our lives. With God's grace, we can make different choices and develop new habits for happiness—habits rooted in faith and supported by what science teaches us about human flourishing.
There is a proverb that says, “If you teach a man, you teach an individual; if you teach a woman, you teach the generations.” My prayer is that we, as women, learn what leads to genuine and lasting happiness, encourage and support one another in living it, and then pass those truths on to the generations that follow us.
