0:15

Pushkin. We

0:18

grew up really poor and upstate in New York.

0:20

Both my parents immigrated from Romania.

0:23

This is Glad. She took a grand student at

0:25

Yale. I've known Flad for over ten

0:27

years now, since he was just a freshman

0:29

in college, but this is the first time

0:31

we've talked about his childhood. We were broke, but

0:33

we had a lot of land. So you know, when my

0:36

mom first moved in the house, she planned some cherry

0:38

trees, and she planted a raspberry bush, and she planned

0:40

like blueberry bushes, and

0:42

every time there'd be a sort

0:44

of new season, she's like, no matter

0:47

what you do, don't eat any of it. If

0:49

you see something, grab a handful and then

0:51

like bring it to me and then you can eat it. And we're like, okay,

0:53

that's kind of weird or whatever you might think. Flad's

0:55

mom was paranoid that her kids would eat something poisonous

0:58

or maybe waste some perfectly good berries. But

1:00

that wasn't what was going on. Lad's

1:03

mom wanted him to learn the power of an important

1:05

Romanian family ritual. She would put

1:07

the raspberries in the palm of her hand. She'd like starts signing

1:09

a cross over it, and she'd say this thing in Romanian,

1:12

and then she'd tell us to say this thing of Romanian. I

1:14

don't speak Romaning particularly well, it's

1:16

gonna sound bad. She'd say, like Sophia pen Thrusvitil

1:20

Louis Jorge was her her dad's name,

1:22

and she'd asked us to say but aprosta Sophia premat.

1:25

But what she said in Romanian, she'd be like, let us be for the

1:27

soul of and she'd say her father's name, and then

1:29

we would say like God blessed, let it be received or something

1:31

like that, and then we'd eat it. And the idea is when

1:33

we're eating it, like her dad in heaven would be tasting

1:35

whatever the fruit was, and you do that for like the first New

1:38

whatever of every year. As a kid, Blad

1:40

didn't totally know what to make of all this. He

1:42

just wanted to eat the fruit he'd found in his yard. But

1:45

the tradition made his mom happy, so he went along

1:47

with it. I'm not religious, which is I think mostly

1:49

just like a play way of saying that I don't think anything happens

1:51

to you after you die, So I don't think

1:54

you know my mom's dad is up in heaven

1:56

tasting raspberries. Rituals

1:58

like the one Blad's mom embraced can sometimes

2:01

feel outdated, irrational, and downright

2:03

weird. At best, these

2:05

practices seem like a waste of time. But

2:07

was Lad's mom onto something could

2:09

strange? Rituals like these be more beneficial

2:12

than we think. Our

2:16

minds are constantly telling us what to do to be happy.

2:19

But what if our minds are wrong? What

2:21

if our minds are lying to us, leading us away

2:23

from what will really make us happy. The

2:25

good news is that understanding the science of the

2:28

mind can point us all back in the right direction.

2:30

You're listening to the happiness laud was doctor

2:32

Laurie Santos. I

2:39

take after her mom in a lot of ways. You know, I don't necessarily

2:41

share all of these qualities, but she's one of the just like the

2:43

smartest, strongest, but

2:45

also just like stupidly stubborn

2:47

people I've met and at least

2:50

inherited. I think some of the strong headedness floods

2:52

vall and Paula was the most vibrant person he'd ever known,

2:54

which made it all the more shocking when she received

2:57

some devastating health news. So it

2:59

wasn't that she had cancer and its bread. She

3:01

actually just got both breast cancer

3:03

and cervical cancer at the same time. Like

3:05

the entire oncology department the hospital she was going to like

3:08

had to have a mean to figure out what to do, because I've never

3:10

they never said that before. Blood watched

3:12

this disease ravage his mom. It was

3:14

one of the worst periods of his life. When

3:17

he talks about it, and this is a warning by the way,

3:19

he can't help but use some pretty strong language.

3:22

Cancer really really fucks you up. It

3:25

does really really ugly things. And you could tell she was

3:27

in a lot of pain, but she absolutely

3:29

refused to take opiate

3:32

painkillers for reasons I still don't

3:34

fathom. I still don't know how she managed

3:37

that. Blood's mom survived longer than

3:39

the doctors predicted, but eventually

3:41

he got the news he feared most. If

3:43

you haven't experienced losing someone

3:46

really really close to you, it's just it's

3:48

one of those things where you just kind of don't realize just how

3:50

horrible it is until you're in it.

3:53

For pretty much two or

3:55

three months straight. I was just at home, like doing

3:57

nothing, and then you know, if I could get up before one

3:59

that would be a good day. You

4:02

need people to remind you to eat because you

4:04

just don't feel like doing anything, you

4:06

know. Just like months of that, was

4:09

eventually able to return to his daily activities,

4:12

but even nearly four years later, his

4:14

mom's passing still affects him deeply. I

4:16

mean, grief is just it's

4:19

it's it's it's hard. The

4:21

bathtimes get you run far between, but that pain

4:24

is always there and it never goes away, which

4:26

is one of the reasons that Vlad has come back to

4:28

that Romanian family ritual. I'll say

4:30

it with my mom's name and Sophia Petrus

4:32

to a Paula, and then I'd

4:35

have someone I care about eat it. Flad

4:37

performs this ceremony every time raspberries

4:39

come into season, and he feels guilty

4:41

when he forgets I remember what it was.

4:43

I saw something and then I realized I'd

4:46

eating it before, and I was like shit, Like

4:48

I missed my window to like do that thing with mom. Blood

4:50

performs the ritual, but he still

4:52

doesn't believe the practice works. I

4:54

don't think my mom's up in heaven

4:57

eating you know the eggplant Isssue taught me to make, or

5:00

you know, raspberries when I find him in the store. But

5:03

but you still do it. I still do it, Yeah, And I think that's

5:05

exactly the sort of reason why it's nice.

5:07

It's like, I don't need to believe it's real. It's

5:10

really easy to kind of get lost in the day to day

5:12

of life where it's like, no matter what's going on, you

5:14

know, I always have papers I should be reading, you know, if

5:16

I've always got like dadies, I should be running. So

5:18

it's really easy to just like not ever

5:20

take the time to sort of like step

5:23

back and appreciate

5:25

the fact that my mom's dad

5:27

and I miss her and I still

5:30

love her and I'm thinking about her.

5:33

And since Fladden and I were chatting about his mom anyway,

5:35

he thought it'd be nice to show me how the ritual worked.

5:38

I don't know, it's weird. My mom made some sour

5:41

cherry. Syriah used to do this a lot and

5:43

it keeps forever. So I've still got some. So

5:46

I don't know, if you want to drink and then I can say it, and then you can drink

5:48

it, and then my mom could taste it. Oh, thatd be awesome that

5:51

you bring it. I did

5:54

think it was pretty amazing to be part of the Shittuk

5:56

family tradition, but I was also a

5:58

bit scared, honestly. I

6:01

mean, Vlad pulled out an ancient looking

6:03

bottle with some weird sediment to crimson

6:05

liquid inside. It didn't even really

6:07

have a lid. The top was covered

6:09

by some old piece of plastic shopping bag

6:11

that was held on with lots of rubber bands. I

6:14

started to feel like I really was an important link

6:16

in this hallowed ancient tradition, which,

6:18

for all I knew, stretched back hundreds of years.

6:21

I was also really honored that Vlad wanted to share

6:23

Paula's cherry concoction with me. This

6:25

small container was all he had left, but

6:28

the bottle was still pretty weird. The top

6:30

of it is really sketchy. Yeah, I'm sorry,

6:34

yeah, smalls gut. I was like a little nervous. But but

6:37

if you don't want to, like, if you don't want to ask it,

6:39

so I'm gonna say the thing, okay, and then you're gonna say

6:41

the thing. I'm just signing the crossover Sophia

6:44

pent through Sufa tool a Paola

6:47

and they say but at yeah,

6:52

and then just oh,

6:59

it's good. Yeah.

7:01

For the next few minutes, Vlad and I sat in the

7:03

tiny recording studio and enjoy the

7:05

cherry Seltzer, which really was quite

7:07

tasty, and for the first time

7:09

in our interview, he laughed and seemed

7:12

comfortable. We were finally able

7:14

to talk about his mom in a way that didn't

7:16

feel so emotionally charged. Mom

7:18

loved you, by the way, she'd always ask about you every time. I

7:20

love your mom. She really awesome kid man. Even

7:23

though Vlad doesn't believe the ritual works

7:26

in the literal sense, his family

7:28

practice has clearly had a huge positive

7:30

effect on him, so much though,

7:32

that he plans to keep this family legacy going.

7:34

Someday when I have children and you know, I'm

7:36

gone, my kids, I hope, well, when they see

7:39

raspberries, still say it

7:41

with my name and think about me. You know, at

7:44

least once a year. You're not gonna at least once a year. And I

7:46

think if I can get my kids to think about me once a year after I'm

7:48

dead, that'd be nice. Rituals

7:54

that in fact pervasive in every aspect

7:56

of our life. I'm talking with Francesca

7:59

Gino and her collaborator Mike Norton. They're

8:01

both professors at Harvard Business School, where

8:03

they study the science behind rituals, the

8:06

big cultural ones like baptism's weddings,

8:08

rights of passage, the kinds of things

8:10

that are passed down for generations. But

8:12

they also look at the little personal rituals too,

8:15

for listeners who have kids

8:18

and our parents. You can think about

8:20

the ritual of reading before bad

8:22

time. I started to think about examples

8:24

in my own life, my producer and not getting

8:26

our morning coffee every day from the same place

8:29

before we start writing, or the end

8:31

of the day chat that I cherish with my husband before

8:33

we go to bed, or the warm liquorice

8:35

tea I prepare before going into the studio. At

8:38

face value, these personal behaviors don't

8:40

seem to have that much in common with Lad's raspberry

8:43

blessing. They're too mundane. But

8:45

Mike and Francesca have found that they still have a

8:47

lot of the same elements, and one of

8:49

those elements is how strongly we feel

8:51

about our rituals. One way to think about

8:54

it is when you get up in the morning, do

8:56

you brush your teeth and then take a shower,

8:59

or do you take a shower and then brush your teeth.

9:02

Can you tell me which one you are. I'm definitely

9:04

a shower then teeth person. Okay, And then

9:06

how do you feel if I ask

9:08

you right now to imagine doing it in the other order?

9:10

It's weird, Like those people must have put

9:13

some problems or something exactly

9:16

around the world. Like half of people brush

9:18

their teeth in shower and like the other half shower

9:21

and then brush their teeth. About

9:23

half of those people don't care if

9:25

I say, flip the order, and about

9:27

half really care like you either, they say

9:30

it feels weird to me, and

9:32

also, as you said, they're doing it wrong.

9:35

Those other people obviously don't

9:37

understand that it's better to brush your teeth and then shower,

9:39

And so showering and brushing your

9:41

teeth can be a habit. You know, I do both of

9:43

those things in the morning. I don't really care what order

9:45

I do them in. Then it's more of a habit

9:48

if you suddenly start to care about the order

9:51

in which you do them and you start to

9:53

think that other people who do it differently are

9:55

wrong. Now we're further on

9:57

the continuum toward ritual. I

9:59

didn't realize I was such a passionate member of team

10:01

Shower first. But this conversation

10:03

made me realize that a lot of my daily behaviors

10:06

were more vitualistic than I thought. And

10:08

then I was f calling prey to one of the oddest things

10:10

about rituals. They have the power

10:12

to generate really, really strong feelings.

10:15

Mike and Francesca became interested and

10:18

why we take these ritual behaviors so seriously,

10:21

and why we even engage in many of our weirder

10:23

traditions in the first place. They

10:25

started by probing traditions like the one Vlad

10:27

used. The rituals we use to honor

10:29

people after they die, they're quite

10:31

powerful, they're quite deep. End

10:34

When people experience a loss, they

10:36

engage in mourning rituals

10:38

that seem to differ across cultures.

10:41

So, for example, if you

10:43

think about crying nearer

10:45

the person who's dying, that

10:47

is something that is viewed as disruptive

10:50

by Buddhist but it's actually

10:52

a sign of respect by the

10:54

Catholic Latinos. When

10:56

we think of grieving, we often think of widely

10:59

used cultural rituals like say, sending

11:01

flowers are gathering for prayers, But

11:03

as Mike and Francesca looked more deeply, they

11:06

discovered that these shared rituals were

11:08

just the tip of the Eyeberg. We did a couple

11:10

surveys really early on, where we asked

11:12

people, think of someone you loved who

11:14

passed away. Tell us how you felt

11:16

and what you did. And what was so weird

11:18

is that people would write, you know, there was

11:21

a funeral, or there was a wake, or there

11:23

was some ceremony, and then

11:25

most of what they would write would be about what they

11:27

did by themselves, often

11:30

without ever even telling anyone that they

11:32

had done it. People didn't only take

11:34

part in big public ceremonies that were sanctioned

11:36

by their culture or faith. They also

11:38

created smaller private rituals, ones

11:41

no one else knew about. One person wrote,

11:43

I would listen to their favorite song and cry,

11:46

thinking of them privately, not

11:48

in public, not communal, not religious,

11:50

just me. One woman wrote, whose husband

11:52

passed away, I washed his car every

11:55

week as he used to do, so

11:57

when he passed away, she could have gotten rid of the

11:59

car, and it said she kept it and washed it in

12:01

his honor. And nobody knew about that either,

12:03

right, so you could say, you know, that's kind

12:05

of a silly thing to do. To wash a car

12:08

you don't drive, But if you have any human

12:10

emotion at all, you can see how

12:12

powerful that would be for her as a way to

12:14

honor that person and maybe even recover from

12:16

the loss. But do these made up rituals

12:19

really have the power to help us recover from grief?

12:21

Do they work as well as the time worn, culturally

12:24

sanctioned ones. We'll examine

12:26

the science. When the happiness Lad returns

12:28

in a moment. They're

12:38

going a trip. You wanna going a trip, You're

12:40

excited? Do you never go? And do you never go? I

12:43

know so good.

12:46

Back in twenty

12:48

twelve, a few years before Paula got sick,

12:51

Vlad adopted a small stray puppy, Toad.

12:54

I mean he was like just covered in ticks, fully

12:57

infested. He had a pretty bad case of heartworms.

12:59

So my mom said getting Toad was the best

13:02

thing that ever happened to me, which I think

13:04

is probably right. Toad came on the scene

13:06

right after Vlad graduated from college. Blood

13:09

was lonely and lost, and having a fragile

13:11

creature to take care of gave him some structure

13:13

and purpose. No matter what, every day I

13:15

had to get up and I had to like feed this dog and walk this dog

13:18

no matter what. I'd go home and he'd be there, you

13:20

know, whying to like hang out with me and be always really really

13:22

excited to see me. Would go on these like long walks pretty

13:25

much the entirety of my adult life. It felt like

13:27

sort of, you know, like a boy and his Dog sort

13:29

of movie. When Flood talks about Toad, it

13:31

does sound a bit like a bromance film. I

13:33

think everyone thinks their dog is, you know, particularly

13:35

handsome and photogenic, but I think Toad was actually

13:37

just just a very handsome and photogenic dog.

13:40

So he did very well on social media. He's

13:42

just like this huge ball of energy. He was really

13:44

excitable. He'd loved people, he loved cuddling.

13:47

Blood exaggerates a lot, but he's

13:49

being honest about this one. It's something

13:51

I saw firsthand. Toad has

13:53

won the heart of everyone he's ever met, including

13:56

me. And sometimes I'd like wear I'm like a

13:58

scar if he really like that? And how happy was he

14:00

here? Six to five pounds so I'd like where I'm around my neck,

14:02

I'd like hold him like a baby. But

14:06

but my mom only met Toad once, so

14:08

I know she was sick, and I really really wanted her to

14:11

meet Toad, probably because she always

14:13

really really wanted grandkids, but I think Toad

14:15

is probably the closest she got to having

14:18

grandkids. The introduction went

14:20

even better than expected. She absolutely

14:23

loved him and he absolutely loved her, and it was just this like really

14:25

special weekend. During their only

14:27

meeting, Paula gave Toad a gift, Heed Treasure,

14:30

a huge red ball. He just instantly

14:32

latched onto. It became like his favorite toy and

14:34

he would just like literally carry that around with him

14:36

everywhere. I don't believe in stuff like that,

14:38

but it felt, you know, it felt

14:40

very very meaningful. Both Vlad and Toad

14:43

loved this hunk of red plastic, and the

14:45

years after Paula passed, they were both

14:47

ready to protect that toy no matter

14:49

what. When Toad was happening out

14:51

of the car, he kind of like knocked the ball out

14:54

with him, and the ball just starts rolling

14:56

into the highway And then just immediately

14:58

in my head, I'm like, I want to

15:00

be that idiot you read about on the news who

15:03

like crosses nine

15:05

five to get a toy

15:08

for his dog. And this

15:10

is like this time going to die. I can't leave this ball here,

15:12

like I need to get this ball, Like there's no way I'm leaving

15:14

this ball here. And then just like a lightly knicks a caar,

15:17

like right, the other sign just like rolls back to this side of the road I'm

15:19

on and I like picked up and put in. I was like, don't leave

15:21

any like spooky shit like that. But it stuff

15:23

like that, you're like, oh, maybe maybe you know, momm you take stocking

15:25

down. It

15:29

came really out of nowhere. I just woke

15:31

up one day and he was at

15:33

the foot of my bed, collapsed in shaking.

15:36

So that was really concerning. So I kind

15:38

of like rushed into the emergency VAT and

15:41

they told me, you know, his heart

15:43

wasn't working, Toad had

15:45

cancer. The news was devastating.

15:48

There was never any way

15:50

to have that go in a case

15:52

where he wasn't dead. Probably within a year. Lad

15:55

didn't give up hope. He did a ton of

15:57

research to make sure Toad got the best state

15:59

of the art cancer treatments. For a

16:02

few months, it seemed to work, but

16:04

then toad symptoms worsened and vlad

16:06

sense of control was shattered once again. In

16:09

the end, putting toad to sleep was

16:11

the only humane option we

16:13

both want up crying in my recording studio, as

16:16

Lad described letting his best friend go one

16:18

Sunday morning last fall. So

16:20

I'm just sitting there with his head on my lap, and

16:24

you know, the

16:27

whole time, I'm just kind of like stroking his head and

16:30

you know, telling him,

16:32

oh, work here I am.

16:37

But then, um, are you just sitting

16:39

there at this time? And I felt really prope because he was like a silly

16:41

dog, Like he wasn't a serious dog. He

16:43

never took anything seriously. Um, sorry,

16:49

do you want to take a break When

16:57

something bad happens, like a death or

16:59

a relationship ends, kind of our sense

17:01

of control is hurt. This is not something

17:03

I wanted to happen. Maybe I'm not really

17:06

in charge of my life, and

17:08

rite will seem to help restore that

17:10

sense of control. It's almost as though doing this controlled

17:12

behavior makes us feel a

17:14

little bit more in control again, and

17:17

that can predict whether or not we get over the

17:19

loss faster. Mike Norton suspected

17:21

that creating rituals might be a strategy

17:23

we can all use to gain back a sense of agency

17:26

when things feel unmanageable. To

17:28

test this idea, he needed to do a controlled

17:31

study, but of course he couldn't replicate

17:33

the kind of awful grief that someone like Flat had

17:35

experienced. So we thought, is there anything

17:37

we can do in the lab that's

17:39

like a loss like that? And the answer is

17:42

no. But the thing we landed on was having

17:44

people lose a lot of money. In

17:46

one experiment, we brought ten people into

17:48

our lab and we told them

17:50

one of you is going to win two hundred dollars and get to

17:53

leave without filling out any of these surveys,

17:55

and the rest of you have to stay. We asked

17:57

all of them to write about what they would do if they

17:59

won the two hundred dollars, which is mean. Then

18:02

we told one of them and it was real, you won.

18:04

We pulled a random number and they won, and they really

18:06

got to leave with the two hundred dollars.

18:09

Now everyone else is stuck there thinking

18:11

about their loss. Again, I'm not trying

18:13

to say that a couple hundred

18:15

dollars it's the same as losing a loved one.

18:17

Of course it's not. But we see some of

18:19

the same dynamics actually that when you lose

18:22

this thing, you wanted. Even in this

18:24

contrive setting in our lab, people feel

18:26

a little bit less the sense of control after

18:29

fantasizing about money they didn't get. The

18:31

subjects were pretty upset, but could

18:33

Mike and Francesca create a ritual to

18:35

ease their pain? So we give people a piece

18:37

of paper and we say, draw a picture of

18:39

how you're feeling right now. And they're actually

18:42

extremely funny just to watch,

18:44

Like, how do you represent that you've lost

18:47

two hundred dollars in pictorial form?

18:49

Some people they just kind of make an angry scribble,

18:51

for example. Then we say, sprinkle

18:54

some salt on it. An insane number of rituals

18:56

all over the world involve salt, throwing salt,

18:58

sprinkling salt, and then after you sprinkle

19:00

salt on it, we say, now tear it into tiny pieces.

19:03

The subjects were then asked a few questions, how

19:06

sad are you about losing all that money? And

19:08

to what extent do you feel like you have control over

19:10

things that happen in the world. Generally, the

19:13

results were striking. People who did the ritual

19:15

reported feeling significantly less sorrow

19:18

than those that didn't perform the action. You might

19:20

seem silly but when people

19:23

do engage in a ritual after the loss,

19:25

they feel more in control, and

19:28

as a result of it, they experienced less

19:30

grief. So in a sense, they're less said

19:33

about the loss itself. But

19:35

the thing I find most fascinating about the lottery

19:37

study is that the ritual made subjects

19:39

feel better despite the fact that it was a

19:41

totally new and pretty ridiculous behavior.

19:44

I mean, Francesca and Mike's subjects weren't

19:46

engaging in some ancient funeral right that

19:49

was passed down for generations. They

19:51

just sprinkled salt on a piece of paper and tore

19:53

it up. It was pretty much one of the stupidest

19:56

rituals Mike and Francesca could come up with, but

19:58

that still led to a significant increase

20:00

in subject sense of control, as well

20:03

as a big reduction in the amount of grief they

20:05

felt. The Lottery

20:07

studies show us that doing something that feels

20:09

like a ritual can have a positive effect

20:11

on our well being even the first time we do

20:13

it, which is a really important finding.

20:16

It means we can just make up a new ritual

20:18

anytime we need one. When

20:21

we get back from the break, we'll talk about

20:23

how you can use this strategy to deal with

20:25

tough moments in your own life, those job

20:27

projections, the failed exams, the

20:30

horrible breakups. It turns out

20:32

you can create your own personal ritual to

20:34

help you through whatever bad events life throws your

20:36

way. In fact, we'll see this

20:39

is exactly what Vlad has planned to do to

20:41

heal after losing Toad. And I'll

20:43

warn you the particular ritual he's

20:45

come up with. It's going to be a bit well

20:48

inventive. And if I could take a little bit

20:50

and just like carried around with me, you know, forever, Like,

20:52

I think that's a really neat idea. Take a little bit

20:54

and inject it into your own yea, take a little bit and inject

20:56

into my body. It's like morbid wears outsides.

20:59

I wouldn't say morbid weird. I would say maybe gross.

21:03

The adjective I was going to use, the happiness lab

21:05

will be right back. I

21:17

had this idea for a while, but then, you

21:19

know, once I find out to do sick, I was like, Okay, no, I actually

21:21

have to do this. When Vlad's mom, Paula, passed away,

21:23

he had an obvious way to mourn her death. He

21:26

used his family's time honored berry ritual,

21:28

But when Vlad's beloved dog Toad died of cancer,

21:31

it wasn't as obvious how to deal with that loss. As

21:34

a culture, we don't really have shared rituals

21:36

for mourning our pets, even though their

21:39

loss can often feel as bad as losing a close

21:41

family member. As a graduate student

21:43

in psychology, Vlad knew that a ritual

21:46

might help him mourn the loss of his dear friend,

21:48

so he decided to get creative. I wanted to get

21:50

a tattoo of Toad's face, and then one

21:53

of the other things I'm thinking about incorporating is the

21:55

red ball that my mom got for him, and

21:57

then raspberries

22:00

for my mom. I think I'd really sweet. But

22:02

Vlad also wanted Toad to become a part

22:05

of him in the physical literal sense.

22:07

So in addition to again I attachoo of Toad's

22:10

picture, you also wanted to have

22:12

the tattoo kind of reflect Toad more

22:15

person Yeah. So I didn't even know this is the thing

22:17

you could do, And I think it's actually really cool

22:20

idea. You know, right now, I've got a

22:22

box full of my dog's ashes. I

22:24

kind of like put it on the spot where he used to sit and look out

22:26

over the window. But I don't know what else to do with

22:28

it. But I guess you can take ashes

22:31

and just like mix it with the tattoo ink, and

22:33

then that way, then you have dog

22:35

ash blow your skin. That's right, Vlad

22:38

is considering permanently injecting Toad's

22:40

ashes into his body so he and

22:42

his best friend can be together forever. I

22:45

mean, some people probably see this spritual

22:47

as a little weird. The word

22:49

disgusting may even spring to mind, But

22:51

that's not how Lad sees it. You don't find it

22:53

gross. You find it really meaningful. I

22:55

think it's cool. I think it's

22:58

cool. I'm also like, I

23:00

think I'm the prime target for like getting dog

23:02

ashes tattooed onto your body. I think

23:04

it's probably made for people like me who are like obsessed

23:06

with their dogs. I'm like, I find some appeal

23:08

to it. I think a lot of it's going to depend on whether that tattoo

23:11

artists is cool with it. You don't want really a kind of halfass

23:14

dog ash tattoo. I don't want to halfass dogash tattoo.

23:17

Blood's still not sure of some of the specifics

23:19

where the tattoo will go on his body dead

23:21

dog ashes or no dead dog ashes. But

23:24

there's one thing he is certain about, the

23:26

fact that this tattoo will allow him to gain

23:28

more control over a really difficult

23:30

situation and bring some order

23:33

to what so far has been a blizzard of constant

23:35

grief. Anything you can do to

23:37

kind of intentionally make you think about

23:40

someone that you love or someone that you've lost

23:43

or something that you're grieving is

23:45

going to be helpful because

23:48

you don't even realize until you lose them. Just

23:50

like how much mental real estate that's taking up

23:52

I had, You know, a lot of these micro devastating

23:55

moments, like I'm trying to check my dog's water

23:58

and it's not there because I put the ball away because

24:00

he died two weeks ago. Like that's really

24:02

shitty, and that's going to hurt every time that happens.

24:05

But I think every reminder you can get that's kind

24:07

of when you decide to do where

24:09

it's like I'm not thinking about my dog because

24:11

I'm like caught off guard. I'm thinking about my dog

24:13

because he was important to me

24:16

and I love him and I miss him.

24:20

That just like feels a lot better

24:23

and at least you know. It still feels sad, but it

24:25

doesn't feel like devastating and you don't want

24:27

to scream where it happens. Psychologist

24:30

Mike Norton and Francesca Gino have found

24:32

that vlad is onto something important. Creative

24:35

personal rituals like the tattoo vlad is

24:37

planning can help people take control

24:39

of otherwise out of control seeming situations,

24:42

no matter what the event. In fact,

24:45

they have found that rituals can also bring us

24:47

peace during sad events that are more

24:49

common than the sudden death of a loved one. In

24:52

the same research where we asked people think of

24:54

someone you loved who's passed away, we

24:56

also asked another group of people about a different

24:59

kind of loss, which is, think of a relationship

25:01

that ended that you didn't want to end. And

25:04

the stories are very very sad,

25:06

of course, and people write really

25:09

fascinating things. One young woman

25:11

wrote that she got all the pictures

25:13

from the time they were dating, even

25:16

the ones where she looked really good in them, and

25:18

then she took them to the park where they first

25:20

kissed and burned them. First

25:23

people laugh, and then everyone's like, oh, I kind of did

25:25

that one time too, But so maybe

25:27

she's okay. But those sorts of things

25:29

they right, it seems like not a

25:31

healthy way, perhaps to deal with a

25:33

relationship that ended. But it turns

25:35

out again that those can help us get over

25:38

the loss a little bit. Now again, doing

25:40

a ritual doesn't make you feel supremely in control

25:43

and now you don't care about the breakup, of course not,

25:45

but they seem to be again one sort of tool

25:47

or trigger to help us along that path. Rituals

25:50

give us a powerful and really cheap way

25:52

to feel more agency when things

25:54

in life feel really out of control, which

25:57

is one of the reasons so many cultures use

25:59

them to help us get through sad events all

26:01

the time. But we don't need an ancient

26:03

ritual or even when we've practiced over

26:05

and over to make it through the nasty things

26:07

in life. We can make up our own.

26:10

The problem, though, is that most of us don't

26:12

realize we have such a powerful tool at our

26:15

fingertips. Our lying minds

26:17

have no idea how helpful a ritual can be.

26:20

We dismissed them as silly or old fashioned,

26:22

and so we don't use them nearly as often

26:24

as we should. I mean, how

26:26

many of you came up with a new ritual the last

26:28

time you got bad news at work, or had

26:30

a fight with your partner, or even

26:32

just had a worse day than usual. Part

26:35

of the message behind the research is to

26:37

suggest that rituals can make life

26:39

better, that it can make us happier.

26:42

And so I'm hoping that

26:45

given that there are rituals that stood

26:47

up to the test of time, I hope that

26:49

we're gonna see them also in the future.

26:52

And that is what Vlad realized. If

26:54

there was one thing that became most clear during our

26:56

interview, it's the fact that Vlad is pretty

26:59

sure that his tattooed procedure is going to

27:01

make him happier. I'm sure I'm gonna solve a lot

27:03

through it. I'm sure I'm gonna solve a lot afterwards.

27:06

I think there's gonna be a period where I'm going to probably

27:08

be sad get a lot, you know, but also

27:10

like the kind of good sad. And I'm

27:12

honestly really really excited. It's something I've been

27:14

looking forward to for a while and I think it's gonna

27:17

I think this could be really nice. So

27:20

Vlad got his tattoo. The tattooist

27:23

wasn't all that keen about adding Toad's ashes

27:25

into the mix, so Vlad went with a detailed

27:28

picture of Toad's happy face on his forearm.

27:32

Yeah, I can hear you. How's it going, I'm

27:34

good, I'm extremely excited. I'm

27:37

gonna It

27:40

was clear that Vlad was feeling sad, just

27:42

as he predicted, But the science

27:44

suggests that engaging in this tattoo ritual

27:47

will help Flad recover from his grief even

27:49

more quickly. And there's a lesson

27:51

in that for all of us. When

27:53

we're faced with an upsetting or challenging event,

27:56

we can create a ritual or one off ceremony

27:58

to suit the moment. It can be something

28:00

destructive symbolically rip up

28:02

that rejection letter for a job you wanted but

28:04

didn't get. Or it can be constructive,

28:07

like baking a divorce cake to mark the end

28:09

of a relationship. It can be

28:11

poignant, like planting a tree. We're

28:13

a bit pointless, like cutting up the T shirt

28:15

your X gave you. And you don't even

28:18

have to believe that the ritual will have some magical

28:20

or spiritual effect. Just taking

28:23

time to think about and perform the ritual

28:25

seems to be enough to ease your pain. So

28:28

that's the end of another episode, which is so

28:30

sad. If you, like me,

28:32

are feeling a little bereft at the thought of our parting,

28:35

why not do a ritual right now. How

28:38

about you go to the place where you got your podcasts

28:40

and write a review, or just tap

28:43

that rating star button one, two,

28:45

three, four or five times and

28:47

say, under your breath, I will return

28:50

to hear the next episode of The Happiness

28:52

Lab with Doctor Laurie Santos. The

29:06

Happiness Lab is co written and produced by Ryan

29:08

Dilley. Our original music was composed

29:11

by Zachary Silver, with additional scoring,

29:13

mixing and mastering by Evan Viola.

29:15

Pete Naton also helped with production. Joseph

29:18

Friedman checked our facts and our editing

29:20

was done by Sophie Crane mckibbon. Special

29:22

thanks to mil LaBelle, Carlie Niggliorre,

29:25

Heather Fame, Julia Barton, Maggie

29:27

Taylor, Maya Kanig, Jacob Weisberg,

29:29

and my agent Ben Davis. The

29:31

Happiness Lab is brought to you by Pushkin Industries

29:34

and me Doctor Laurie Santos.