Journaling for Wisdom

What if wisdom isn’t just something that comes with age—but something we can actively cultivate through reflection and intention?

In this episode of Wellness in Every Season, Autumn Carter sits down with Dr. Laura Gabayan, a physician, researcher, and contributor to Psychology Today, to explore how journaling can become a powerful pathway to deeper wisdom and a more meaningful life. Through her groundbreaking Wisdom Research Project, Dr. Gabayan interviewed 60 adults across North America to uncover the eight scientific elements of wisdom: resilience, kindness, positivity, spirituality, humility, tolerance, creativity, and curiosity.

During the conversation, Dr. Gabayan shares how her own life—including navigating chronic illness and profound personal challenges—led her to explore wisdom through a scientific lens. Together, Autumn and Dr. Gabayan discuss how journaling helps calm the mind during difficult moments, create space for honest reflection, and reveal the bigger picture in life’s challenges. They also dive into how wisdom intersects with wellness, parenting, resilience, and personal growth.

You’ll hear how a simple journaling practice can help you process emotions, build clarity, and move forward with greater faith instead of fear. If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by life’s twists and turns, this episode offers thoughtful insights on how reflection and curiosity can guide you back to alignment.

Learn more about Dr. Gabayan’s work, books, and the Wisdom IQ test at:

Website: https://lauragabayan.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/commonwisdombook

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauragabayan

X: https://x.com/Laura_Gabayan

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/l.gabayan/

For more wellness tips and exclusive content, join my newsletter! Sign up now at https://wellness-in-every-season.kit.com/5-days-to-mastering-mornings-and-evenings receive a free 5-day guide called "Awaken and Unwind: 5 Days to Mastering Life's Mornings and Evenings." 

Transcript

Introduction to Episode 192

SPEAKER_01 0:01

This is episode 192. We are going to be talking about the eight scientific elements of a meaningful life. Welcome to Wellness in Every Season. We talk all things wellness to help you align yourself, align with your goals, find balance in your life, and just recalibrate yourself. If you are listening for the first time, welcome, welcome. I'm so glad you're here. And let's get started in the rest of the podcast. I have Dr. Laura Gabayon. She's a world-renowned physician, researcher, and psychology today contributor. Through her wisdom research project, she interviewed 60 wise adults across North America and defined eight fundamental elements of wisdom. Exactly what we're going to be talking about. She describes her findings in her new book and journal, Common Wisdom: Eight Scientific Elements of a Meaningful Life and Common Wisdom journal. I was most excited when I read this, and even just saying this, that you have done so much research. I love nerding out on research. And that you've written in psychology today. I have used that publication a lot in my undergrad degree. And I think that just speaks volumes because I know that they can be really picky. So it speaks volumes about you and your work.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

Thank you. It's funny because you know it was a very academic definition. And I did research, and then I thought about weakness, as you can tell, I sort of my speech. And I was like, well, what could this be? I found later it's chronic Lyme disease. And I was in college, but I was taking the back of how medicine in the Western world was very like, oh, do this, do that, let me diagnose this. We never even learn about Lyme disease in med school. And so then I was like, well, who does things outside the box? And it was the why. And I'm like, well, what do we know about wisdom? And we didn't know anything, really. And so I did a research project, and that's when I interviewed 60 people. I defined wisdom as each element.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

That's amazing. And it's so funny that you're talking about Lyme disease because the person that I recorded right before you works with that. So it's just I I love having just these little synchronicities and these little connections. It's fun to see. Interesting. Yeah. It just reminds us that we are very seen and the world is not as big as we think it is.

SPEAKER_02 3:04

And coincidences really don't happen. You know, we think they do, but they're really there for a reason.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

Reminds us that we're seen and loved and cared for and on our journey.

SPEAKER_02 3:17

Right.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

My biggest question with this is how did you define who was wise and who is not?

SPEAKER_02 3:25

So, first of all, someone has you know six people I didn't all know any of them. Whenever you do any research project, you have to look at what was done for him. And psychology journals, society journals, Justrack journals had TAPFA with them and they defined it. But I quickly, you know, when I started telling people, do you know someone was? I quickly realized no one knew the definition. No one. I interviewed people and then I asked them if they knew people.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

For some people it might be more, oh, someone's more of a wife or an old soul. So how did you come up with what your definition was?

SPEAKER_02 4:13

So that's where the science came in. I had published a paper once before in quantitative research, and that's where I used to- so quantity research deals with taking ideas and classing them into one or a few. For example, we started with 20 different elements or ideas, and we came up with eight. And quantitative research is what I was used to doing. Looks at the numbers, you know, this hundred thousand people or this number of people. So that's why I use the scientific data. For example, so my elements, I'll say what they were again in my book, Common Wisdom, were resilience, kindness, positivity, spirituality, humility, tolerance, creativity, and curiosity. And so the third element was positivity. But for example, some of the 60 got humor, and some got gratitude. And so both humor and gratitude collapse into positivity. So initially we start with more ideas, but they collapse into bait.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

That makes sense, and that makes it a lot easier to grasp. And if it was 20 or 50, it'd be a lot harder to really absorb and how do I apply this into my own life. Right. I love that. Qualitative is so much better to me than dealing with numbers, and I love metadata type of research. I really enjoyed my research class that I took.

The Research Process and Findings

SPEAKER_02 5:56

Well, it's funny because they use qualitative data and studies and science to kind of define things, to start things off, to tell a story. So I think that's what we did. That's amazing. Walk us through this journey. So the ideas for the book took about 10 years. And the actual project, meeting people, interviewing them online, took about seven months. During those meetings, I had a team with two others, me and the other two with meet on Thursdays to Sundays, so we met like four hours a week. During the week, we would review the interviews, find them an element or different things. In between that I wrote as well. I started in October and I ended in around May June.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

And why did this even interest you to begin with?

SPEAKER_02 7:03

I think it was I felt like in Western medicine, because I am a musician and very western trained. In Western medicine, everything was kind of like, you know, this is how you do it. It's kind of like routine. And I think it interested me because I realized that wait, we do need to think outside the box. We do need to be more curious and creative. We do need all that. That's why I was like, well, let me approach a very outside topic with the scientific lens. And so I tell people it's kind of like an intersection of science and soul, because it's very, it kind of brings the two together.

SPEAKER_01 7:55

I think that's great because we maybe it's very Western world of us, but we tend to think one or the other, and we forget that it all lines up to become all of us as a whole person and all the parts of us. And are we doing okay and are we not? I have these bookmarks that have like really good sayings on them, and you can't really read it from here. But it says, Don't think outside the box, think like there is no box.

SPEAKER_02 8:21

I love that. So it just That's a good one. And I think for me, I was so Western medicine. I mean, I got a master's, I went, I was very like, okay, Western medicine is the answer, but it wasn't. And when I started developing symptoms, I was like, there must be more, but no, I didn't get that from Western medicine.

Personal Reflections and Life Changes

SPEAKER_01 8:49

Yeah. So it sounds like, and I feel like this is for everybody that I interview, is that this project is very personal to you. This is why you really started it.

SPEAKER_02 9:01

And it changed my life. It's funny because someone was like, oh, wanted this topic and it hasn't been enjoyable. For someone who's in the yard and used to running around that hasn't been easy in any way, being dependent is especially hard for me. I am, and I realized, you know, it's a price I'm paying because now I live a totally different life.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

So it sounds like you had to definitely have a pivot because of Lyme disease. So you said you were an ER doctor.

SPEAKER_02 9:39

Well, no, I can't do anything. I can't walk around. So medicine was my past. And so, but the research and looking at something objectively is always going to be part of who I am. And the same with the medicine. It's always going to be part of who you are. But I approach it differently because of this whole process.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

That makes sense. And you've definitely had to do that, like you said, with your own life. With having your sense of identity had to shift.

SPEAKER_02 10:13

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

One way or another. I'm sure it was extremely difficult, and you either embrace it or you don't. I wonder with this. That led you on the path to what is wisdom? How can I find my own wisdom?

SPEAKER_02 10:31

Right, and then Tony Kids, I recently went to Long Con present two weeks ago. And I was the only one that wasn't a realtor. In a way, I kinda needed it to be so cheap. Because it's of my party. And it caused me to pivot, as you said.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

I'm the same way. I was smiling because I was like, yeah, that's me. And I had that yesterday. I was pretty couch-ridden. I tend to burn myself out. And it's that reminder of, okay, why does my husband do this? I'm like, well, I have different cycles than he does. You know, women have it's a monthly cycle, minutes a day cycle. And it's the way I grew up. I'm used to doing that. And I can hold myself back more than I used to, but it's that reminder. I'm very all or nothing. So I definitely resonate with that. And it's a journey to undo that.

SPEAKER_02 11:35

It took a long time. I have to say, I mean, I started noticing random symptoms in 2013. The book was published in 2024 last year. But I mean, think about the journey it took.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

That explains why it took you so long to get to this book.

SPEAKER_02 11:58

I don't want the idea during Coven. But I knew I wanted to do a good project, because that's what I was used to.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

And it takes time to be there. I wonder if you're also like me where it takes a lot to see the steps and then be able to do that. I am a planner.

SPEAKER_02 12:21

I just knew okay. To do the project you have to know what's out there, you have to define it. The only thing I defined that the people I interviewed was at their age. They had to be age 50 to 79. Outside of that, it didn't matter. Because I knew wisdom is not different based on gender, political affiliation, race, or ethnicity, but it is different based on region. So the wisdom of Asia is different than the wisdom in North America. That's why I stick to North America and the age as well.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

Okay, I wondered about why you chose America. Why did you choose the age that you did?

The Importance of Resilience and Positivity

SPEAKER_02 13:13

So it's wisdom actually has an inverse your relationship with age, and that when you get younger people, it does take time, experience to get there. And older adults, once they're in 80 parts, they kind of become less placable. What else have you learned from the data? That was it, this is all beforehand. And then what I noticed was if you remember the eight elements of my book, the first one was bazillion. And I noticed that the people had gone through horrible lives. And yet they were very appeased and they were not bitter. They were kind of a little bit okay. They weren't angry. And that was interesting.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

Have you found any commonalities into how they were able to get to that point?

SPEAKER_02 14:16

No, I think this goes back to me thinking the eight elements are related. I mentioned that in my book, but the eight elements, so I think they were nately positive, so third element positivity. I think that helps a person be resilient. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

Well, that's something as a parent that I'm how do I get my children to learn resiliency, not forced upon them, because that that's breaking them.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

Right.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

But how do I encourage them to, because with resiliency, there comes grit, right? And how do we really help them to not give up so quickly? And one of the things that I catch myself saying with them is you have your own big, beautiful brain, stop using mine for really simple tasks too, because they're young. It's but it can be really hard. And I know I'm not the only one that feels this way in parenting. You can think of it this way. If you have any management experience and you have other people that you work with, there's so many different ways that we feel this towards other people. How do we encourage resiliency to come out and that sense of when do you dig in versus when do you not? Because how many people just keep going and you can tell that is the absolute wrong road that you should be on? Like you need to pivot badly. And we've even had this in our own lives. And I mean, for you, you were forced to have to pivot. Yes. But how long were you fighting it before you decided, okay, I need to pivot? And that goes with the resiliency.

SPEAKER_02 16:06

I think it was four or five years. 2013, I was like, okay, wherever it is, then we'll fight it. And then 2017, 18, 19, I was like more of like, okay, I don't want to fight it. But it took a while. Took a long while.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

It sounds like you have enough of my personality to see that. It would take me a while too. And it's that's hard.

SPEAKER_02 16:42

But I thought about it. I really needed something this extreme to happen. If it was not that bad, I would just try to find it and pass through.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

And put things into perspective.

Spirituality and the Secret to a Meaningful Life

SPEAKER_01 17:04

How have you changed your outlook on life and applying this to your own life through learning this research? And there's something so different from having all of this data and looking at it to then writing it. I'm sure that's when you really started to how do I apply this in my own life?

SPEAKER_02 17:25

Well, it's funny because the eight elements are, in a way, the secret to living in meaningful life. For example, the fourth element is spirituality. My book, Common Wisdom. And by the way, I called it common wisdom because it looked the common trait. The common elements and everything on, hence the name common wisdom. So the fourth element was spirituality, and what was interesting about spirituality was it was really hard for me to do work on that chapter. I was a total scientist, physician, never learned to think about that. And I always learned that if you don't see it, if you can explain it, can't measure all, it doesn't exist. And now, like the reason why you have two people that are attracted to one another, whether it's friends or romantically, wherever it is, and nothing can explain it. Like, why are you attracted to this person and not to that except for spirituality? And there's just so much in our lives that involve spirituality that we don't think about. So I think when I look at the eight, I feel like it's a secret to living in good body.

SPEAKER_01 18:50

I love how much it correlates with the eight dimensions of wellness is my foundation for my wellness coaching.

SPEAKER_02 18:58

So that's great. Because I feel like a lot of people also would want their kids to think about those eight. So I feel like those eight are a big part of our lives.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

Yeah. And the yin-yin symbol kept coming to me when you were talking about science and spirituality because they should fit together. Most things, even political views, most people land in the middle.

SPEAKER_02 19:25

I think about the yin in my book. Either way, but I agree. No one is a three.

SPEAKER_01 19:33

They will be on like one topic, but then if you go here, then there it's that reminder that we are so individual and that we should not be piled into all the people with blue eyes, all the people reminder that we're more alike, then we are different.

SPEAKER_02 19:51

And I think people don't realize that, but we are. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

Sometimes it's fun at the beginning of the conversation. All right, how are we different? All right, now let's talk about how we're alike, because it can be so fun to be like, oh, how are we not an echo chamber to each other? What can I learn for you? But for some people it can be very off-putting to be like, okay, how are you different for me?

SPEAKER_02 20:14

My second element in my book called wisdom was kindness. And if you think about it, regardless of how old we are, where we came from, we're all attracted to that. We all want that, and we create that. So that's just a sign that we really are and natively alike.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

I love that. And when we are kind to each other, that's when we really connect the best. Yes. And when we connect to ourselves and our spirituality.

SPEAKER_02 20:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

So I would love it if you could, and I can give you whatever time you need. Find me your favorite section in your book, and if you could read to us a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 21:01

It's funny because it takes me a while to walk over and get my book.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

Okay, I'm gonna read this part of her book for you. And oh, we even have a quote by Dolly Parton. The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain. I love that quote of hers. Resilience was the most common element associated with wisdom. It makes sense. When we think about people who have encountered a difficult life challenge and resolved it with grace, we tend to regard them with special admiration. We become intrigued by how that person managed to not only survive the obstacle, but thrive. We realize that because of that experience, they likely now have a different perspective on life. They have turned a potentially negative experience into a positive learning opportunity, making them wiser. The more of these life challenges they overcome, the wiser. They seem to be. As Oprah Winfrey once noted, they turned their wounds into wisdom.

SPEAKER_02 22:07

I do like to quote a lot of people because I feel like a lot of what everyone had to say is really helpful.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

I like that, especially getting different perspectives. We need to hear things several times for it to click, but we need to hear it from different people and in different ways as well. So I love that. And I love the way you write too.

SPEAKER_02 22:32

That was I have a great editor, and he was a scientist, so I don't like say having as Bully Burning, some very to the point. So it always helps to have a really good villager. Yeah, and I had written before for academic journals, but it was very different. But I did know that, you know, everyone wants you to be to the point. So I think that's something I use in my book too, is being to a point.

SPEAKER_01 23:07

And I like that you sound like a person because an academic journalist, you're supposed to sound more analytical.

SPEAKER_02 23:13

Right. Yeah, I love this. And you mentioned the journal. So I had written the book. The book got published in March of last year, and many people love that each chapter has questions after it. And so I was like, well, I can write more about in a journal. The journal is small, but it definitely makes someone think about the eight elements. Yeah. And the journal is hard for you to I mean someone hasn't ordered.

SPEAKER_01 23:53

How can kindness affect a negotiation?

SPEAKER_02 23:57

So in the book, I talk about how I think it's in the kindness after someone I interviewed when he had written a book about negotiating. And you can approach it kindly. And either way you get the job done, it's a matter of, you know, I think being kind about it will be easier for you and the other person to handle.

SPEAKER_01 24:26

And I think this is important, especially now when I'm still waiting for grocery prices to go down since COVID. They're not going to, but I'm gonna always keep waiting. And we are all feeling the pinch, so to speak, since COVID. In one way or another, even if we're doing well financially, we're still feeling it when we're paying for something and it's higher than we remember it being. Everything is gone up, I feel like really fast. Yes. And it hasn't stabilized, equalized, or any of that in any sense of the word. And I'm thinking about this because I was supposed to write my newsletter today for those in my community. And it's going to be about how to ask for to start with, and then it's going to go back into how do you transition to a job? Because so many people with the government shutdown right now, it impacts not just government workers, but it trickles down and it's going to, even once the shutdown is done. And we all have AI, too. Yes, yes. There's good and bad always, right? And it's great that AI is out, however, and that's with everything in life that there's stuff like this. So that does go with negotiation. You can think of it as negotiation for raise, you can think of it as negotiation between AI because there's the good and the bad, and how do you find that middle ground and negotiating with your children, getting them to go to bed? Or for me, getting them out of the office so I could record with you. We have so many things that we are negotiating in life. So I like that question because we want to find that ground of how can we be kind but firm and hold to our boundaries, maintain who we are, keep the core of who we are intact and not be tarnished, and still show humanity love and compassion and all of these things that make us and the world beautiful, and it can be hard. How does that affect negotiation? Because you want to keep that touch point in there, and that really is wisdom right there, isn't it?

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

SPEAKER_02 26:55

Yeah, it is. And now I come from a place of faith. And I think it's I'm not scared like it was. I feel like, okay, you don't look out. Don't worry. My whole life I was a very fear-based anxious person, and so I think taking that and changing that has been a big one for me.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

Sounds like it definitely remained you then.

SPEAKER_02 27:43

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 27:45

That's amazing, and I look forward to other people getting this, reading it. I did a positive intelligence course for coaches, and in that he talked about in the 1950s, they were moving this huge Buddha statue. And when they moved it, it was a lot heavier than they expected it to be. So they thought they damaged it at first, but they realized that it was pure gold and it had a bunch of casting stuff just wrapped around it. They were covering the fact that the Buddha was gold from the people who are coming in and pillaging. They were protecting it. And so many times we do that around ourselves. And we all have to come to this point in our lives where we are willing to take off all of that and just be our big, bold, beautiful selves and to show the gold that is us, the purity that is us. And this allows for us to maybe rediscover or discover for the first time our wisdom and how we want to show up in the world in our lives, and how we want to shine our bright, beautiful light into this world. Thank you for writing this. I love journals.

SPEAKER_02 29:10

So, yeah, they I think I messaged it. But it's helpful to have both. It's helpful to have the book and the journal. But I agree though. I think I felt like by being fearful I was in control. And I don't know if that's an active representation in any way. I think it made an arder. I could have done what I did in life and not been fearful. So I think it was my way of trying to be in control, but I think when you look back, you know, there's you're not in control. You think you are, but you're not. Waste of energy. And that's why this happened. And my body, this happened because I was drawing myself to the ground. Going back to my book, I feel like people would really enjoy not only my book, comrades, and but the journal. And my website has a lot of all this. Warlegobine.com has a lot of. But you know what? Really? You know, it's funny because I talk about the eight elements, and only one person of the 60 I interviewed had all eight. So it's not common for people to have water more. You know, and so I think I recently came up with the wisdom IQ test, and that's on my website, and that kind of helps a person know, oh yeah, it's something I'm good at. And it's really important that people are honest. But the wisdom IQ test is a good place to start.

SPEAKER_01 31:04

Ooh, that sounds fun. I'm excited to check it out. And all this will be linked in the show notes, so don't worry. You might already be cheating, like sometimes I do, and you're looking at them while listening. But for me, I love having a book, and I'll read through the book and I'll kind of journal off on my own and then reading through the journal and doing the actual journal part. It feels like a really good refresher. So I am very excited to go through that. And yes, I totally cheated and looked at the journal first. Normally I don't, but I love how much it correlates with the dimensions of wellness, and all of this is really just different modalities to look at your life and how can you make your life better, and how can you have your own finding your own way of aligning yourself so that you feel like I know my path, I know myself, I feel aligned and I feel empowered, and I am making the most of my life because we all have these chances to remake ourselves, and it can be really exhausting if we keep trying on a new mask, only to find it doesn't fit because we really need to take off the masks. So thank you for the incredible amount of research that you put into this book. Thank you. Congratulations on your book, baby. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I hope that you found the answers that you needed and you had some amazing aha moments. Please share this episode with others because it helps us align ourselves and then better align the world so that we can seek the healing that we really are looking for. As part of the legal language, I am a certified life coach with a bachelor's in applied health. That is what I am leaning on for this. This is general advice taken outside. See you in the next episode.