Living with Authentic Happiness: The Kind That Doesn’t Fade When Life Gets Hard

Epiosde 132 of the Raising Wild Hearts Podcast

Authentic Happiness: The Kind That Doesn’t Fade When Life Gets Hard

We’ve been sold a version of happiness that feels impossible to maintain.
We’re told that if we can just get the next promotion, reach the next milestone, or finally “fix ourselves,” then we’ll be happy.

But authentic happiness — the kind that carries you through heartbreak and hardship — doesn’t wait for life to be perfect.
It’s built on presence, purpose, and connection.

🌙 The Happiness Myth

Somewhere along the way, “being happy” became synonymous with “staying positive.”

We learned to smile through it, brush things under the rug, and pretend everything’s okay.
But that’s not real joy.

Authentic happiness is honest.
It’s the kind that holds through loss, grief, and the messy middle of life.

As Ryann shares in this episode:

“Authentic happiness isn’t butterflies and rainbows — it’s being able to say, ‘I’m a happy person,’ even when life feels uncertain.”

🧠 The Psychology Behind Real Happiness

Through her studies in positive psychology, Ryann discovered what Dr. Martin Seligman calls the Authentic Happiness Theory — that true happiness is built from three things:

• Pleasure: small joys and moments of delight

• Engagement: being absorbed in what you love

• Meaning: feeling connected to something bigger than yourself

Authentic happiness isn’t the absence of struggle. It’s the presence of purpose.
It’s the awareness that joy and pain can coexist — that fulfillment doesn’t erase difficulty; it transforms it.

Listen to the full episode:

Your dreams aren’t going to chase themselves - Sign up for Ryann’s free 3-Part Video Series, Do The Thing🔥

We’re told to chase our dreams, to pursue happiness.
But the truth is — there’s nothing to chase outside of yourself.

“Wherever your two feet are standing now,” Ryann says, “you can build a foundation of happiness right there.”

Authentic happiness starts with alignment.
It starts when your soul work and your human work finally match — when you stop performing and start participating in your own life.

Creating Moments of Quiet Joy

Ryann invites listeners to remember — or create — a moment of quiet happiness.

Not a goal achieved or a milestone celebrated, but a simple second of being alive:
sun on your skin, laughter with your child, walking the dog and feeling at peace.

These small, sacred moments are the foundation of authentic happiness.

Ask yourself:

• When was the last time I felt quietly happy?

• What made that moment feel true?

• How can I expand that feeling 10% more this week?

Integration of happiness grounded in reality

You don’t find happiness by escaping hardship.
You build it by being honest, present, and awake in your own story.

Because happiness isn’t the goal — it’s the garden you grow everything else from.

“Grief and gratitude can share the same breath. That’s authentic happiness.”

✨ Key Takeaways

• Happiness isn’t a reward; it’s a practice of presence.

• Authentic happiness is made of pleasure, engagement, and meaning.

• You can hold both — joy and grief, excitement and uncertainty.

• Real happiness begins when you stop pretending and start listening.

• You can build happiness wherever your feet are right now.

Chapters

Chapters

00:00 Understanding Authentic Happiness

03:36 The Role of Positive Psychology

07:46 Navigating Life's Challenges

09:07 Embracing Duality in Emotions

12:30 Finding Joy in Everyday Moments

13:34 The Pursuit of Inner Fulfillment

Up Next: The Happiness Formula with Anil Gupta AKA The Love Doctor

Resources: The ‘Best Books of All Time’ Curated Booklist for Mindful Moms and Conscious Parents

Full transcript of this conversation with Ryann Watkin

Ryann (00:03.138)

Hi friend, welcome back to the Raising Wild Hearts podcast. Today it's just me and you. And sometimes that is so nice. So get a mug, get your favorite drink, and let's hang out for a little bit. What I want to talk about today is authentic happiness, which means no matter what's going on around you, no matter what's going on in your life, you can say,

I am a happy person. Is everything butterflies and rainbows? No, it's not. But you can authentically say, I am a happy person when you have and embody authentic happiness. So I think the word happiness has been hijacked. I think we've been sold a lie that we will be happy when

And it's always the next thing and the next big idea, the next promotion, which leaves us just wanting more and more and more.

Ryann (01:26.378)

If we're wanting more and more, that's fine to want more.

Ryann (01:51.342)

The word happiness has been hijacked. And we've been told that happiness means staying positive or keeping it all together, brushing it under the rug, pretending that everything is okay. But authentic happiness is the kind of happiness that holds through heartbreak, it holds through grief, it holds through challenges that life inevitably brings us. In 2020, when my husband

lost his job and I started homeschooling our kids. My oldest was going into kindergarten. I had so many moments in those years from like 2020 to 2023 where I was like, I feel like I'm stuck. I feel like, you know, I'm not able to work and

The truth of it is I was choosing it. I could have sent my kid to the public school down the road and let her figure it out in kindergarten with the teachers wearing masks and whatever was going on then that I didn't want to do. I could have done that. I made a choice to stay at home, to continue to homeschool for three years, and to kind of figure it out.

That was my choice. And in retrospect, of course, everything's clearer, right? Now it's like, of course. But what I didn't really realize at the time was that I had a choice. But now I can say that. Five years later, six years later, it's easier to say that. And I look back and so much about that hard time I was going through. My husband lost his job. I started homeschooling. We were going through massive financial difficulties. Our relationship was

kind of struggling, my husband and I, then I got pregnant with our Third child. So it was so many things. It was like the waves just kept on coming. And it's like, can you believe in the past like two years, this, that, and this thing has happened to us? And I can confidently say that I was a happy person in that time. I took my kids to the beach.

Ryann (04:14.526)

I allowed myself to just be pregnant. I allowed myself to put work on hold. And I did find that true happiness from inside. Did I want more? Yes. Did I want to be working? Yes. And there's a season for everything.

Ryann (05:14.582)

And it was around this time that I found a field called positive psychology. Thank God for that. Because what I realized when I started studying positive psychology is that I had a choice of how to show up and how to make meaning and how to really understand the things on a daily basis that brought me joy.

Ryann (05:47.179)

And so in positive psychology, Dr. Martin Seligman's authentic happiness theory says that happiness is actually pleasure, engagement, and meaning. So it's not the absence of struggle. It's not that we don't have challenge in our life. It's that we have the presence, we have purpose, and we have connection with others in our life.

Ryann (06:24.614)

And might I add, happiness is a fleeting emotion. It comes, it goes, it's kind of fickle. But if we can stay really, really rooted in presence and purpose, that is what brings about true, authentic happiness. And I have lived this in my own life. And if you want to explore more of happiness, more meaning, inviting more purpose into your life, really coming from a place of service,

and creativity, I made something for you called Do The Thing. It is a powerful three-part mini-series where we're going to dive into happiness, success, doing the thing that has been on your heart for a really long time. You know the one. We all have that thing.

And so in this mini series, we go through and I'm gonna hold your virtual hand and we're gonna talk about the science behind it. We're gonna talk about the psychology behind it. And we're gonna talk about building up the capacity and the confidence and the courage to finally do the thing that your soul is calling you to do.

Ryann (07:43.287)

I love this work so much because I believe we can change the world by starting at home in our own minds and hearts. And part of that is the way that we work. Part of that is the way that we show up in service for the ones we love.

Ryann (08:10.592)

It's not just mindset work. It's not just, I'm choosing joy today. It's even a layer deeper than that. And it's really the process of becoming, the process that I have lived out in this past decade, right? My personal growth journey started when I became a mom 10 plus years ago. And it was inching towards that way. I was getting little whispers from my heart.

from God, from the universe, whatever you wanna call it, of Ryan, it's time to grow. And what I didn't realize at the time was that I needed this really, really challenge of a season to...

me forward, to call me upward. And it was as if God was saying, like, yeah, girl, you understand that mindset is a big piece of this. You understand that you need to make certain shifts in your life. Let me put you through this season so that you can actually walk the talk. And so that is where I'm

standing today. I've been through the wringer. I have gone through various challenging seasons and with each one, it's interesting. I emerge a stronger, more confident, more clear individual and human being. So,

Ryann (09:58.319)

For me, authentic happiness is really grounding in to reality. So the reality is I have three kids, 10 and under, and life can be really hard. And my husband works lots of hours and I have...

Ryann (10:32.376)

So authentic happiness for me is really, really aligning my soul work with my human work and really starting to listen to the divine timing that is playing out in my life. And if that means I'm going through a challenging season, letting that be. It's not that I don't persevere to be the best and all of that, but like we're letting the waves

kind of come and go. For those of you who study like hypnobirthing before you had your babies, like I did, they talk about, you know, the waves of the contractions and just like riding that wave. And the better we get at this, the easier it is to be mindful in our lives. And I think there's such a common misconception that mindfulness is like not thinking.

or that it's like to stop ourselves from feeling bad or something like that. But really what it is is just, yes, it's raising your frequency. Yes, it's showing up the best you can be. And also, it's still allowing in our life the things that are playing out in front of us.

Ryann (12:25.177)

being present with what's real.

Ryann (12:40.659)

One of the things that I love to tell my kids and I love to tell myself is that two things can be true at the same time. We can feel two ways at the same time. My, many of you know my grandmother who was my beloved beloved Grammy passed away this year in August. And did I grieve? Yes. Do I still grieve? Yes.

And there is still this bliss surrounded by the experience. One, because she lived until she was 98 years old. My uncle in the eulogy said, do you know how many people live until they're 98 years old? I forget the, I want to say it was 0.2%. Like, think about that. And so missing my grandma, you know,

having her death, like allow me to face my own mortality, know, seeing my mom grieve the loss of her mom. There's that and there's still this joy. I had weeks and months to go over and visit with her on her deathbed. She was so mentally and emotionally aware up until like the very end. And so really leaning into what's the gift of this.

And what's the lesson of this in every single thing in your life?

Ryann (14:25.721)

Grief and gratitude can share the same breath. That's authentic happiness. It's the capacity to hold both at the same time.

Ryann (15:07.951)

So I'm wondering for you, when was a moment that you felt quietly happy? It wasn't noisy, it wasn't a big celebration, it wasn't even hitting a goal that you had wanted to hit. But when you just felt so centered, so you, sometimes when I walk my dog and the sun's on my face and the

Bees are swarming and I hear the birds chirping. Like sometimes really briefly in those moments, I'm like, this is joy. When was the last time you had a moment like that? And if you can't remember the last time, I want you to create a moment like that in your life. It doesn't have to have to do with anything outside of you, just some.

situation you can put yourself in that will really let you soak in that ease and that grace and that love of just simply being here now.

Ryann (16:24.207)

And if you do remember one of those moments where you felt that, what made that moment so powerful for you? What was it? I want you to paint yourself that picture in your mind. I want you to envision if you could take that moment and expand it. Expand and expand it. Make your days 10 % more of that. Make your weeks 20 % more of that.

Ryann (17:03.649)

And that is your North Star. That is the compass telling you where to place your attention.

Ryann (17:27.407)

So one of the questions we can ask ourselves this week is what will make me happy? So one of the questions we can ask ourselves this week is what in my life already feels like joy? What already feels like happiness? And take that one small thing and expand that one small thing. So instead of asking what will make me happy or

How can I be happier? Find something that you already know lives inside of you, that glimmer, that glimpse of peace.

Ryann (18:59.041)

I hope this is helpful in your pursuit of happiness. And I also want you to know that there's nothing that you need to pursue. I saw something the other day that said, your dreams aren't going to chase themselves. And I laughed because I think that's hilarious because really like your dreams aren't going to chase themselves Like nobody else is gonna chase your dreams except for you. And also,

It puts us in this mindset, which frankly, we've like really been conditioned to believe that we must pursue or chase something else, something out there. And that once we get that thing, then we can be authentically happy. So I don't love the idea of needing to pursue anything.

Because there's nothing to pursue outside of yourself. There's nothing. Do we want the great job? Yes. Do we want the business that brings so much fulfillment? Of course we do. Do we want to put our art into the world and use our creativity and make the world a better place? Of course we do. But none of that happens without our own happiness and fulfillment coming.

first.

Ryann (20:31.353)

So this week, when you're thinking about where am I now and where am I going, I want you to remember that wherever your two feet are standing now, you can build a foundation of happiness right there.

Ryann (20:53.751)

I hope this filled your cup. I love showing up and having these chats with you. If you laughed, if you cried, if you got something out of this, definitely follow the show so you can get notified when new episodes come out and text it to a friend.

Ryann (21:15.223)

It's one of the best ways for the Raising Wild Hearts podcast to get in front of more minds and more hearts. Love you guys so much. Thank you for being here. And until next time, go love someone well.