Well, hi there, my friends, and welcome back. My name is Stephanie Safarian, and you're listening to episode 530 of Sustainable Minimalists. This is a listener-supported show about intentional and eco-friendly minimalist living. And on today's show, we are discussing happiness. More specifically, we are discussing the reality that humans are animals, and animals

are not happy all the time. Cultural messaging tells us that we should always be at that wow

level where life is grand and everything's beautiful and we are happy. And if we're not there, we should get there.

And if we can't get there, there's something wrong with us. Perhaps we have a problem that needs

to be fixed even with a pharmaceutical. Well, my guest today argues that none of that is accurate

from an evolutionary standpoint. In fact, unhappiness is our brain's

natural default state. Today I'm speaking with Dr. Loretta Bruning. She is the author of Why

You're Unhappy, Biology versus Politics, and she is also the founder of the Inner Mammal Institute, linked in the show notes.

Today we're talking about why we compete and compare and what competing and comparing does to our

happiness levels. We're also talking about the concept of abundance. Why, if we live in this world of

abundance, why aren't we happy? We're also deep diving into the

four happy chemicals today, so I'll just set that up right now. We're discussing serotonin,

dopamine, oxytocin, and endorphin. At its foundation, happiness is scientific. So how can we

get more of these four happy chemicals flooding through our synapses more regularly? That's today's show. Now, this is June's free episode, free as in I think the information is really great and really important, and I'm putting it out there in the world for everybody. I put out one free episode a month, and please know that I'm putting out

episodes every single week as normal. So if you want more, know that there are hundreds, yes,

multiple hundreds of people who subscribe to this show with $5 a month, and you can be one too

and get all the episodes if you're so inclined. Thank you so much for

considering. Now, I do have a bit of life updates. I got a job recently, but I'll talk about that in the

outro so as not to waste your time. Meet me there if you want to know more about what's going on in my

life. But let's just jump right into our interview. Dr. Bruning,

I'm so thrilled to have you on the show. How are you? Good. I'm glad to talk to you.

Well, I'm glad to talk to you as well. Why don't we start today by you telling us about yourself,

...