PODCASTThe Science of Happiness

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From childhood adventures to post-trauma recovery, explore how our parks support our well-being— and why access to them matters.

Summary: Nature has long been a source of wonder, healing, and connection. But access to those green spaces—from neighborhood parks to national treasures—are increasingly at risk. In this episode of The Science of Happiness, we hear how awe-inspiring outdoor experiences can help us feel more alive and less alone, and what we can do to protect those spaces.

How To Do This Practice: 

1. Step outside with intention, even if it’s just to your backyard, a nearby park, or a patch of grass.
2. Pause and take a few deep breaths to ground yourself and shift your attention from doing to simply being.
3. Notice the details around you. The movement of leaves, the pattern of clouds, the sound of birds or distant traffic.
4. Look for something that surprises or moves you, no matter how small, like a weed blooming through concrete or shifting light on a tree.
5. Let yourself feel whatever arises, whether it’s wonder, calm, grief, or joy—there’s no right way to experience awe.
6. Before you return indoors, take a moment to reflect on what you saw or felt, and how it might shift your day or perspective.

Today’s Guests:

STACY BARE is a climber, mountaineer, and skier. Climbing helped Stacy recover from PTSD from a year in Baghdad as a Civil Affairs Team Leader in the Army. He is the recipient of the Bronze Star for merit and a combat action badge and named one of National Geographic’s Adventurers of the Year for 2014.​

Follow Stacy on Instagram: @stacyabare

Add Stacy on Linkedin: https://tinyurl.com/49zazw8f

Related The Science of Happiness episodes:  

The Healing Effects of Experiencing Wildlife: https://tinyurl.com/bde5av4z

How to Do Good for the Environment (And Yourself): https://tinyurl.com/5b26zwkx

Experience Nature Wherever You Are, with Dacher: https://tinyurl.com/mrutudeh

Related Happiness Breaks:

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

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

A Walking Meditation: https://tinyurl.com/mwbsen7a

Tell us about your experience with this practice. Email us at happinesspod@berkeley.edu or follow on Instagram @HappinessPod.

Help us share The Science of Happiness! Leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts and share this link with someone who might like the show: https://tinyurl.com/2p9h5aap

Transcription:

DACHER KELTNER: What drew you to nature as a child?

STACY BARE: What drew me to nature as a child, I think, was the same thing that drew a lot of kids that were born in the 70s and 80s, right? Who were analog, and that was your mom telling you to get out of the house after lunch and you could come back home at five. I grew up in a very small town in eastern South Dakota, Brookings and I didn't have a watch. We just ran around. We ran around other people's backyards. We ran around parks. There was a grove of trees, and beyond that was just corn fields. I think that background is why, when I came home from Iraq in 2007 I reintroduced and committed myself to time outdoors. I had a somatic experience on the top of a rock climb, and that's when I was like, okay, this is it. This is where I need to be spending my time and my energy.

DACHER KELTNER: Welcome to The Science of Happiness. I'm Dacher Keltner. Over the past 20 years, I've studied the science of awe, how it brings us closer to others, humbles our sense of self and calms the nervous system, and one of the most reliable ways to experience awe is through nature. So this week, we're exploring the many ways public parks, from national treasures to local green spaces, support our health and strengthen our communities. We'll also look at what's at risk with budget cuts and land sell off proposals and what we can do to protect these vital places more after this message from our sponsors.

Hi. I'm Dacher Keltner. Welcome back to The Science of Happiness. If you're listening, the week this episode comes out, it's around the Fourth of July, a time to celebrate, honor those who've served our country and enjoy the public spaces that make this country special, like our parks, from national parks to neighborhood ones. Research shows that time and nature nourishes our bodies and minds, brings us together and supports the health of our planet, but that connection is under severe threat. In June, the Trump administration announced plans to open up 58 million acres of backcountry in national forest to road construction and development, rolling back protections that have stood for a quarter of a century. Those plans were rescinded after bipartisan pushback, but experts say America's forests still face serious threats. What's at stake isn't just land, it's our well being, our access to all and our planetary health. Our guest today, Stacy Bare is a veteran of the Iraq War and a powerful voice for outdoor healing in a time of budget cuts, climate change, and growing threats to public lands, his perspective is more important than ever. Stacy, thanks for joining us. 

STACY BARE: Thanks for having me. Dacher, it's always fun to spend time with you. 

DACHER KELTNER: You know you were an early voice in this idea, in particular in the veteran community. And I remember talking to veterans with you, and you were making the case like nature heals. I'd love for you to paint us a picture of, for you, the moments when you started to realize, like, this heals me.

STACY BARE: I think there's several moments, right? I've been home for almost 18 years. 2007 is when I got home and I tried to go into the VA for the first time in 2010 and I couldn't do it. Recently, I had a friend come and sit with me to sign into the VA, and I've been going through PTSD treatment for the first time, like official, formal PTSD treatment. And so my therapist says to me, we've got to pick the one event. What's the one event that was a watershed moment where things changed, and it was, I was on patrol, and I saw a dog. It was happily eating something. I went to look, and it was eating the neck out of a man, and the man looked like just a dude, you know, he's wearing, like, khakis and a polo, and we weren't able to do anything. And one of the things I realized, it was a moment of negative awe. It was a moment where I felt small, disconnected and completely out of control. And I think I spent the last 18 years trying to explode that moment with insane, incredible moments of awe. And I've had a lot of really incredible moments. I've been on a lot of mountaintops, I've run a lot of rapids. And I think now when I look back, the moments of awe that have had the biggest impact are things that it would be hard to take a picture of, especially when I go out riding or hiking, the transition of light between hardwoods and softwoods is mind blowing. To me, it's those moments that stacked up. And when Doug Peacock, right from grizzly years shared, if you can humble yourself for the beauty of the plant that makes it through the crack in the sidewalk. And I think I've tried to take that to heart. And when you combine that with one of the things that I love hearing you say, and you say it better than anybody is. There is no diminishing return in seeking awe and beauty. I think it's those moments of, for lack of a better term, minimal awe, that stack up to create a life that's really gotten me where I am today.

DACHER KELTNER: It's all I can count on so beautifully put Stacy, thank you. You wrote about these experiences that nature gives us hope, resilience and a reason to keep going, and I'd love to hear just like, what that was like for you to arrive at that reason.

STACY BARE: Yeah, I think it's a hope to keep going, because the seasons are so wonderful and they're changing, and we're experiencing this tremendous loss as seasons go, right? And, you know, we've only been in Michigan for three years, but years ago, Michigan had a pretty long winter, and from a snow sports enthusiast, that'd be great, and that's part of why we moved. And we've had such a rough three years of winter. You know, six weeks, eight weeks, 12 weeks had been the time here, and there's just something so magical about when winter comes, and it's where my daughter and I really connect, and my whole family and my wife and I, and it's riding the chairlift and it's sliding back down, but that's why I think it gives me a sense of wanting to keep going. Last night I planted six raspberry starts. And you know, they won't fruit this year. They may not even make it, but it keeps me going because I want to see what happens, and I want to see that change, and I want to see that growth. And that's the stuff that keeps me going, is I want to see what's around the corner. I want to see what's around the bend. I want to be able to sit and watch and know a place deeply, season over season over season. And those are the things that I look forward to. And when I look forward to the fall, and I've really fallen in love with the fall, having moving back to the Midwest and watching those trees change, or watching, you know, an Eastern Redbud for the brief moment that we get to see the bright pinks of the Redbud come out, and when the leaves come out, and it's still green and pink all at the same time. And it's these ephemeral moments that are so beautiful. There's so much about how we've created this unreal separation between ourselves in nature, and I'm indoors, I'm outdoors. You know, it's like when you come off a multi day trip and everybody goes, oh, like, I'm not ready to go back into the real world. And it's like, man, you've been in the real world. Like, what you're going to now is this false sense of world that we've created. I remember as a kid wondering why my dad always drove around with a radio off, and I find myself now doing the same thing. It's just, what am I going to get to see next? And I think that for me, has become enough to want to keep getting out of bed in the morning.

DACHER KELTNER: It's the magic of natural laws. It just keeps you wondering what comes next. Another piece of writing of yours really struck our team and me. You write, you know, people need the connection that happens on the trail between two strangers when they witness the majesty of our world. And you know, whenever I go backpacking, often with my daughter Natalie, out in the High Sierra, you know. And you remember the meadows and the rivers and the peaks and the granite and so forth. But then you remember people you know, and it's remarkable how much it dovetails with the science that just being outdoors, something about being part of an ecosystem or all these majestic life forms, it makes you feel like you have community. You don't polarize. See common humanity. It's just good news. 

STACY BARE: My brother and I talk about it. My brother's primary way to get outside is hunting and fishing. And I've gone and hunted with him and fished with him. And when you're sitting with purposeful silence with one another, you might say 10 words to each other the entire time you're sitting there, and that profound connection as you watch the sun rise and as you see the deer walk across. And even those moments of like seeing a deer or a boar and being so overwhelmed by its majesty, you forget to pull the trigger, yeah. And I think everybody's had those moments, right? And I think I mean, even, like with my father, his last memories were of fishing, and, like, he couldn't remember anything else, and it all came back to one fishing story when he was like 11 or 12, and this trout he caught at Indian Creek in front of his property where he grew up in West Virginia. And I've been on that river, and I've talked to other people about that river and those trout and where they go, and those are the connections, right? You have them, and you hold onto them. And you know, for me, it was always really important as a veteran, you. That we created those connections in the outdoors, that we had non veterans out there, yeah. And part of that was because if you found somebody and you made that deep connection in the outdoors, and then you're back home and you're on the subway or you're stuck in traffic, you know that if there's one person that you could connect with, probably there's another person. If there's one, there's two, if there's two, there's four, if there's four, there's eight. And so I think it's those connections that really break us Open.

DACHER KELTNER: Up next. Stacy Bare shares a powerful vision for the future of our parks, and if you're looking to get involved, we've included some helpful resources in our show notes. You can find those wherever you're listening.

Hey everyone, welcome back to our show. This is Dacher. We've been talking about how nature and access to public parks support our health and our communities, but those spaces are under threat. For example, under a national energy emergency declaration, the Department of Interior is fast tracking dozens of oil gas and mining leases on federal lands offering them at rock bottom prices. This isn't a political issue. These are places we all treasure. Advocates like Stacy bear are working to protect these places and remind us why they matter for our well being today and for generations to come. Here's the rest of our conversation. 

You know Stacy, you opened my mind to parks as healing and the power of parks, and I'm so grateful for that. And today, the firing of rangers, and even though we only spend 1/15th of 1% of our federal budget on parks, that's in deep jeopardy. And I, like a lot of people, you know, just parks have been home, and they're where I go to find my soul and my family's soul since I was tiny, and I feel like it's disappearing. And I'm curious what your vision is for what we can build. 

STACY BARE: I think what the vision is, I think it's more funding than national parks. It's not bipartisan. It's non-partisan. Everybody loves them. And I think you're going to see greater increase in funding, hopefully, for city parks, for county parks, for that nature that's nearby. And I think you see that in a place like Grand Rapids, we have 2000 acres of parks in our city of 200,000. 1000 of those acres are non manicured, and we're working on a plan to move our trails from about one in every three people having access within 10 blocks of a dirt trail to one in every two people. That's a huge shift, in the state of Arkansas, give credit where credit is due is change liability laws to allow for better access and to allow private landowners to open their lands up so that people can ride across them, run across them, horseback across them. And that's the type of policy stuff that I think you're going to see across the board. And for gosh sakes, if Arkansas is leading, which is a deep red state, yeah, what can we learn from that? And how do we make sure that it's an all state issue, it's an outside issue?

DACHER KELTNER: Yeah, there's no other way to phrase it. A dire time in some ways, 3,500 park rangers let go from the National Park Service threats to the budget. You know, understaffed. What do you tell people who feel this and understand the sacred place of nature in their lives and their family's lives? What do you tell them to do?

STACY BARE: First of all, go outside, make sure you're going outside when you can, and then call your congressman or congresswoman, call your Senator, call your state rep, every day. That's a 10 minute practice. And then get involved where you're at, invite your neighbor out with you, plant some milkweed. There's a million actions that can be really little, and I think the key thing is just to offer a couple of those, but definitely call your legislators and then figure out, you know, is it I'm gonna plant four milkweeds and go on a hike, I'm gonna transition 10% of my yard into wild spaces. And, you know, Earl Hunter would tell you, from black folks camp two, that part of the problem is that we haven't done enough to invite people out, the black community, to the Latinx community, even to the indigenous community, who we've shoved off the land. We right now, more than ever, need to make sure that we're taking the time to invite people into our personal time in the outdoors. I mean, if I was to start a political party, be the parks party, because if you focus parks as an organizing element and all those things, a lot of the other things, healthcare, clean air, clean water, those are all the things we need in parks. That's what we get in parks, that connection. So it's a really scary time, but I do think the positive of it is that people are seeing, oh, we gotta work together. We gotta figure this out. We've gotta push on and like the conversations I've had with hunters and fishers and climbers and kayakers and whitewater rafters and snowmobilers, it's such an important conversation because we've got to figure out, how do we get those Rangers rehired? How do we get the programs fixed, and how do we create more of an opportunity for professional folks to work in outdoor recreation? And the economic thing is really important, but the spirit and the emotion and the healing and the near religiosity of the outdoors, right? Every sacred religious text happens in the outdoors. Prophet Muhammad's in the caves like Jesus has a sermon on the mountain the only time he's inside, for the most part, he's flipping tables, right? It's all throughout our sacred literature, but we've taken for granted that it's always gonna be there. And people aren't taking it for granted anymore, and they're starting to work towards it. It’s so hard to live a life without just falling into metaphors of war, we gotta fight for it. But I think what we're seeing is people living for it. We're seeing people try to wage peace. We're seeing people try to wage wilderness in a way we never have before. So maybe that's the bonus of everything falling apart and being torn apart, is that we're gonna build something up that's more beautiful. We're gonna plant more pollinators in our yards, like maybe there is a brighter future.

DACHER KELTNER: I just got goosebumps, Stacy, as I often do when I share conversation with you. Thank you. Thank you for your work and thanks for being on the show. 

STACY BARE: All right. Back at you.

DACHER KELTNER: What is intuition and how can we connect with it to make better decisions?

ZAKIYA GIBBONS: Being more mindful and intentional with doing an intuitive practice. Made me realize this is kind of like a muscle, and I haven't exercised this muscle in a while, and it made me realize I had been conflating intuition with instinct.

DACHER KELTNER: Join us to learn the ways we can develop our intuition on our next episode of The Science of Happiness. Thanks to our associate producers Emily Brower and Dasha Zerboni. Our producer, Truc Nguyen. Our sound designer, Jennie Cataldo of Accompany Studios. And our executive producer, Shuka Kalantari. I'm Dacher Keltner. Until next time, thanks for being part of the Science of Happiness community.