Follow and subscribe to Growing Pains by HoneyKids on YouTube. Or tune in on Spotify and Apple Podcast. Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram for the latest episodes.
This week on Growing Pains by HoneyKids podcast, we speak with Singapore’s first Happiness Scientist,
Sha-En Yeo spent her teenage years being bullied in a girls’ school, quietly asking herself “is this it?” A teacher left a note on her desk that changed something. Twenty years later, she’s Singapore’s first happiness scientist, trained under Martin Seligman at UPenn, and the author of an upcoming Penguin book called I Miss Feeling Like Me.
But here’s what she’ll tell you that most happiness experts won’t: no strategy creates joy. Gratitude journaling can actually make things worse. And the pressure on parents to stay positive is one of the most harmful things we do to each other.
This conversation covers what toxic positivity actually does to the nervous system, why self-compassion has to come before any strategy will land, and the CALM framework she uses with her own kids when emotions run hot.
It also goes somewhere more personal: her father’s illness, the night she stood on a stage in a red dress at a Chinese New Year dinner on one of the hardest days of her life, and what she learned about authenticity when performing happiness was simply not an option.
The conclusion Sha-En arrived at after 15 years in the field: joy is not something you chase. It lives in knowing who you actually are.
What you’ll take away
- Why “tomorrow will be a better day” is one of the worst things you can say to a struggling parent
- The difference between happiness and joy, and why only one of them actually lasts
- The CALM framework: a four-step tool for responding to a child’s big emotions without toxic positivity
- Why gratitude journaling can backfire, and what has to come first before any strategy will work
- What standing on a stage in a red dress on one of the hardest days of her life taught her about authenticity
- Why self-compassion, not gratitude, is the bridge when you’re too miserable for strategies to land
- The five-step path back to yourself when you’ve lost track of who that actually is
About Sha-En Yeo
Sha-En Yeo is Singapore’s first happiness scientist, a two-time TEDx speaker, and author of the upcoming Penguin book I Miss Feeling Like Me. She holds a master’s in positive psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, where she studied under Martin Seligman, Angela Duckworth, and Adam Grant, and has reached over 25,000 people across APAC. Upcoming book launch: I Miss Feeling Like Me (Penguin)
Keep up with Sha-En Yeo on:
- Social media: LinkedIn, Instagram
- Happiness Scientist
Growing Pains is HoneyKids Asia’s podcast for the conversations you want to have after the kids go to bed.
If this one moved you, share it with a parent who needs to hear it. Or send your feedback and topic suggestions to podcast@honeykidsasia.com — we’d love to hear what you’d like us to talk about next.
Growing Pains is produced in partnership with Poddster, Singapore’s podcast studio.
