Thank you for joining us for episode 465 of Live Happy Now.

We live in a world that is increasingly chaotic, and this week's guest has a better roadmap for navigating this uncertain territory.

I'm your host, Paula Phelps, and today I'm sitting down with Dr. Emma Sepula, a Yale professor,

bestselling author, and research scientist whose new book is Sovereign. Reclaim your freedom,

energy, and power in a time of distraction, uncertainty, and chaos.

Emma is here to talk about how embracing both our positive and negative experiences

and becoming more

compassionate with ourselves can improve our relationships, cultivate greater personal freedom,

and even improve our physical health. Let's have a listen. Emma, welcome to live happy now.

Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. It's such an honor to have you on the show. You've done some

amazing work already, and you have a brand new book coming out that we're going to talk about,

but I really appreciate you taking the time to sit down and talk to us today.

Absolutely. Yeah. I'm delighted.

So your new book is called Sovereign, and that's a word we don't hear a lot. It kind of stops you for a moment. So it takes

a little bit of an introduction to understand what is sovereignty. And especially for you, you talk

about personal sovereignty. And can you explain that to us? Absolutely. So my first book was about

the science of happiness. And, you know, there's a lot to share there, as you know, from your podcast. But after, you know, I used all those practices and I use them still daily. But I realized there was another element that, you know, you can be doing all the self-care practices you want. But if you don't have sovereignty and I'll explain what that is, then you can't

all get all the way there. And what do I mean by that? You know, you can meditate all day, but if you

are highly self-critical and buy into fears and beliefs about yourself that are not serving you

and engage in behaviors and addictive habits that are destructive, then you're not going to be

able to attain the level of fulfillment that you wish, nor are you going to be able to show up

as your best self. So I think it's helpful if I give an example.

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