Broadcaster and comedian Wendy Harmer and positive psychologist Dr Tim Sharp (aka ‘Dr Happy’) lift the veil on relationships and explore what it takes to nurture our most important connections with our partners, friends, and with ourselves. About the episode – brought to you by Australian Seniors, in partnership with RSPCA. Join Jean Kittson for the seventh season of DARE: The time of your life (formerly Life’s Booming), called Better With Age. Too often ageing is painted as decline. In reality, Australians are living longer, healthier lives and reshaping what “older” looks like. This series flips the script and shows how ageing is not a dirty word but rather a time to be embraced, featuring interviews with extraordinary over 50s refusing to slip quietly into the background. Wendy Harmer is a trailblazing comedian, broadcaster and journalist who has spent decades at the centre of Australian media and entertainment. Wendy first made her mark breaking new ground in Australia’s stand-up comedy scene before going on to become one of the country’s most recognisable media personalities and the author of bestselling books including Farewell My Ovaries. Australia’s own Dr Happy, Dr Tim Sharp is a leading positive psychologist, bestselling author and founder of The Happiness Institute, Australia’s first organisation dedicated to enhancing happiness. With a career spanning academia, clinical psychology and public speaking, he’s become one of the most recognised voices on mental health and wellbeing. Watch DARE: The Time of Your Life on YouTube Listen to DARE: The Time of Your Life on Apple Podcasts Listen to DARE: The Time of Your Life on Spotify For more information visit seniors.com.au/podcast Produced by Medium Rare Content Agency -- TRANSCRIPT: Jean Kittson: Welcome back to the podcast – DARE: The Time of Your Life, formerly Life’s Booming, brought to you by Australian Seniors, in partnership with RSPCA. I'm Jean Kittson, and this season is called Better with Age where we're flipping the script and showing how ageing is not a dirty word, but rather a time to be embraced. Australians are living longer, healthier lives, and this season celebrates over 50s who are pushing the boundaries of what ageing looks like and feels like. In this episode, we are lifting the veil on relationships and exploring what it takes to nurture our most important connections with our partners, friends, and with ourselves. We've probably all experienced how relationships shift over time. It's natural, of course, but it might surprise you to know just how important they are to our overall happiness and why it's vital to keep nurturing all relationships old and new. Which brings me to our first guest, Wendy Harmer, who knows about the importance of friendships and relationships and making new ones as we age. I first met Wendy when we worked together back in the 80s, so we've been friends a long time. She's one of Australia's most beloved entertainers, a trailblazing, standup comedian, journalist, broadcaster, performer and bestselling author. Her books include the wonderful Pearly children's book series, as well as more adult titles like Farewell My Ovaries and her memoir Lies My Mirror Told Me. And joining Wendy is Dr Tim Sharp, otherwise known as Dr Happy. Tim is one of Australia's leading positive psychologists, and the founder and Chief Happiness officer at the Happiness Institute. Also a bestselling author, including The Happiness Handbook and his most recent Lost and Found. Tim has dedicated his career to helping people live happier and more flourishing lives. Tim and Wendy, welcome to the podcast. Thank you both for coming in. Wendy Harmer: Great to be here, Jean. Jean Kittson: Oh, it's lovely to have you both here. Wendy Harmer: I've got to say, Tim, the first time I set eyes on this one, what a bombshell. She would've been on stage in a nurse's uniform at The Last Laugh Theatre Restaurant. It was, at the time, playing Nurse… Jean Kittson: Pam Sandwich… Wendy Harmer: …Pam Sandwich Jean Kittson: …in Let the Blood Run Free. Wendy Harmer: And this. All arms and legs and big boobs and blonde hair and falling over and doing all this amazing physical comedy. Everyone just adored Jean – and the men, we had to fight them off with a stick. Jean Kittson: Yeah. Well those were the days, weren't they? This is what friendship's all about Tim, right? Thanks Wendy. That was lovely of you to say that. I mean, we've known each other for, well, since the early 80s. Wendy Harmer: It would have been about ‘83. Jean Kittson: And you were on stage doing stand up. See, I was doing [characters] and you were amazing, what you were talking about, women’s things – topics for women, about women and relationships. Wendy Harmer: That's right. Well, because when I first started out doing standup, it was really a bloke's domain and I thought, well, this, you know, this is ridiculous because, you know, women's lives are interesting too, and I mean, there's one thing that annoys me above anything else is saying women aren't funny. Like the idea, Tim, that you would say, ‘oh, the pet budgie can make me laugh. The dog can make me laugh, but a woman can't make me laugh.’ I mean, it really, I think it strikes to our humanity and I get really cross about that. So I've sort of been a bit of a campaigner with that, you know, rubber chook on a stick for many years. But you know, the idea, I know you have this happiness. You talk a lot about happiness. How important is laughter? Dr Happy: Very important. Well, it's a general group, laughter, fun play, all of those things, which we too often underestimate and discount. Well, we sort of see them as a nice to have, but the research is pretty clear. It's super important for a good life. It's hard to live a best life, a thriving life, a flourishing life without laughter, without fun, without play. I mean, there are many other things as well, and I'm sure we'll get to some of those other things, but a hundred percent it is a very important contributor to living a really, really good quality life. Wendy Harmer: And it's interesting too, that our sense of humor. It's not universal at all. It's formed in that crucible of the family, or indeed your chosen family like Jean. You know, we chose each other as grownups to be a family. But that, you know, there is like the punny family, there's the practical joke family. There's, you know, each family has its own particular sense of humor, doesn't it? Jean Kittson: Well, I think friendship is a really important way of maintaining humour in your life because you get together with friends to have a laugh, don't you, often? Wendy Harmer: Yeah. Jean Kittson: I mean, they're complex relationships, friendships. I mean, you've had friendships for a long time, Wendy, long-term friends. Wendy Harmer: I still have a friend who was at my 70th birthday a couple of months ago, whom I met on the school bus when I was 13 years old. So I – Gary. So I think that's pretty cool. He's the friend that I've had the longest, but you know, Jean and I have very similar trajectories in this way. We both were sort of country girls, and then we went to Melbourne and then we moved to Sydney. And that is a big dislocator, isn't it, of friendships. It's when you, you know, and we both moved to Sydney about the same time, so we left this huge coterie of friends to move to Sydney with our husbands, and then we both had kids, which is isolating as well… Jean Kittson: …definitely, it changes everything, doesn't it… Wendy Harmer: … you know, the nature of a friendship just changes so much over the years. Jean Kittson: But in terms of friendship and happiness, I mean, is friendship a really important element? You are talking about laughing, which it is, but I know when I get together with friends, we laugh a lot. But friendship is a really important part of, you know, happiness. Dr Happy: Yeah. Well, look, I've been, well, I probably should say I started out my career specialising in unhappiness. I was a clinical psychologist to begin with and an academic. So I was studying sort of stress, depression, and misery before I even discovered happiness. But I have been studying, well, what we technically call positive psychology for several decades now. And if I had to sum up everything I've learned from thousands of research articles, hundreds of books, many, many conferences about, you know, what are the most important contributors to, well not just happiness, but wellbeing more generally, longevity, physical health, et cetera, it would certainly be positive relationships. In fact, one of the – so Christopher Peterson was one of the leaders, one of the grandfathers of positive psychology, and he dedicated his life to studying, thriving and flourishing. And he was once asked, what have you learned in, you know, 50 years as a professor? And he said, I can sum it up in three words. He said, other people matter. Wendy Harmer: Wow. That is correct. Dr Happy: So yeah, it's vitally important, almost certainly the most important contributor and the most important thing we can do is prioritise fostering and developing good quality relationships. Wendy Harmer: Well, you do hear that, don't you? That people ask on their deathbed, you know, what's your regret? And it's often that I didn't spend enough time with friends or family. You have some amazing relationships, Jean, and it's funny when you have a friend and you get to know that – and Angela, she's not a friend of mine, but I know her to be your best friend and that your friendship has been amazing over the years. How long have you known Angela? Jean Kittson: Well, I've known Angela for, since we were both teachers sent to the wilderness to teach first year out teachers. So probably since we were about 21, so 50
