PODCASTHappiness Break

Scroll down for a transcription of this episode. 

Take a few minutes to reflect on someone who inspires you, and how you can embody the values you admire in them.

How To Do This Practice: 

1. Arrive and Settle: Find a quiet place to sit or stand. Gently close your eyes or soften your gaze. Take a few slow, steady breaths, allowing your body to relax and the noise of the day to quiet.
2. Call to Mind Someone Who Inspires You: Think of a person whose character deeply moves you—someone whose courage, kindness, integrity, or compassion stands out. Let one specific moment come to mind when they embodied those qualities.
3. Replay the Moment: Picture what they did as clearly as you can. What action did they take? What values were they expressing? Stay with the details of that moment and what made it meaningful.
4. Notice How It Lands in Your Body: As you hold this image, turn your attention inward. What do you feel physically? Warmth, openness, a softening, maybe even emotion rising—just observe without judgment.
5. Name What Matters to You: Reflect on why this moment resonates so deeply. What value or sense of purpose does it point to—justice, care, truth, courage, love? Let yourself name what feels most true for you.
6. Ask yourself: What’s one small way I can live this value today? It might be in how you speak to someone, how you show up in your work, or how you care for yourself or others. Carry this intention with you as you move forward.

Today’s Happiness Break Guide:

DACHER KELTNER is the host of the Greater Good Science Center’s award-winning podcast, The Science of Happiness and is a co-instructor of the GGSC’s popular online course of the same name. He’s also the founding director of the Greater Good Science Center and a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley.

Related Happiness Break episodes:

Embodying Resilience: https://tinyurl.com/46383mhx

A Meditation on Becoming a Gift to Life: https://tinyurl.com/yc76n7ur

Visualizing Your Purpose: https://tinyurl.com/3ndn95zr

Related Science of Happiness episodes:

What’s Your “Why” in Life?: https://tinyurl.com/b38kdt68

How To Ground Yourself in Nature: https://tinyurl.com/25ftdxpm

Pause to Look at the Sky: https://tinyurl.com/4jttkbw3

Follow us on Instagram: @ScienceOfHappinessPod

We’d love to hear about your experience with this practice! Share your thoughts at happinesspod@berkeley.edu or use the hashtag #happinesspod.

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Transcription:

DACHER KELTNER: Welcome to Happiness Break, a series by the Science of Happiness where we take a little break in our day to try different practices and meditations where we take a little break in our day, where we take a little break in our day to try different practices and meditations to help support ourselves and connect us with the world around us.

Today we’re turning our attention towards our sense of purpose in our lives. Or, sense of meaning in what we do, by homing in on what values we hold most dear and who inspires us to live up to those values. In the literature, this is known as moral beauty. That other people’s sacrifice and courage and sense of justice and humility can inspire us to live up to those values that are so important to our sense of purpose.

So for example, for a lot of scientists like me, Jane Goodall, is a person of moral beauty and her devotion to studying the chimpanzees that she studied, her sense of wisdom and understanding, really in promoting a new science and the preservation of different species inspires me to think about how to be a better scientist living with purpose. So today we’ll contemplate the moral beauty around us that inspires us to live with greater purpose.

Research suggests that when we have a strong sense of purpose, we’re happier. We have healthier habits and stronger relationships. And a sense of purpose cultivated by things like moral beauty is linked to less chronic illness and lower depression rates.

So find a quiet and safe place to sit. Or if you choose, you can stand. And let’s explore homing in on our sense of purpose through moral beauty. First, let’s pause and settle into a relaxed pattern of breathing, letting go of the day’s stresses.

Now think of somebody whose moral beauty inspires you, whose kindness or courage or strength or character has moved you emotionally. Think for a moment, a very specific moment when this person did something that moved you to feel inspired. What was it that they did that demonstrated kindness or courage or strength or overcoming. What actions did they engage in that embodied these principles?

Now as you get an image in your mind of what this person did, this act of moral beauty, sense in your body how thinking about this moral beauty of a friend or a loved one, how it makes you feel. Notice what is happening in your body. There might be some warmth in your chest, sense of openness. Maybe even tears.

Now as we become more aware of how these actions of other people’s moral beauty move us physically, reflect on why this action matters to you, why does it really speak to you? What do you find really personally meaningful about this act of moral beauty?

This is the experience of moral beauty when we are aware of how it moves us emotionally and in those emotions we often can recognize some kind of purpose that really matters to us, some realm of meaning. It might be about truth or justice, or caring or beauty.

So returning to your example, think of how this person has helped you realize a purpose you have in your life.

What did this person teach you about how you wanna live a meaningful life?

How would you name the kind of purpose that they embody? That you feel is important to you. What is that sense of purpose that they have given to you? You might even want to name it.

Now, think for a moment about, is there anything you can do today as you move through your busy life that is aligned with the values and sense of purpose that this individual embodies and has inspired you to think about?

What can you do to bring that quality of moral beauty into your day-to-day? In how you treat other people, in how you carry out your work and your loving relationships.

Let’s take a few deep breaths and let’s move through the rest of the day animated by this feeling that arises when we think about other people’s moral beauty and the purpose it gives us in our individual lives.