Thank you for joining us for episode 529 of Live Happy Now.

If it's been a while since you found yourself acting silly, we're hoping today's episode will change that.

I'm your host, Paula Phelps, and this week I'm talking with Tom Rochert, author of the book Chasing Peace, and he's here to talk about the science and spirituality of silliness.

As you're about to learn, embracing your silliness can have an amazing impact on your mood, your health, and even your relationships.

So get ready to learn how to take silliness more seriously. Tom, welcome back to Live Happy Now.

I'm so happy to be back.

Thank you.

I'm super glad to have you back on the show.

This is a show that's been months in the making because when I read your book,

Chasing Peace, you had a very small, it wasn't even a full chapter.

It was just a few pages that talked about the spirituality

of silliness. And that was, I dog-eared that page and I went back to it multiple times because

it just, it resonated with me. And I think part of it is we don't think spirituality and

silliness in the same sentence. So talk about what you mean by the spirituality of silliness.

Well, okay. So that's sort of starting in the middle. So I will start in the middle, which is

spirituality for me means I decide there's somebody I want to be and this is how to be happy.

And there's somebody I want to be and I this is how to be happy, and there's somebody I want to be,

and I get high when people see me that way, and I get hurt if they don't see me that way.

But that's the focus of my life and the drive to happiness, is to be this person.

But the spiritual part comes in when that path, the self-image model of happiness, the pursuit of a self-image in order to make yourself happy, that fails.

And it has to fail because to be this one thing, you have to deny all these other things

that you are.

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