Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
Speaker 1: the podcast where we talk through some of the big
Speaker 1: life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
Speaker 1: mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the podcast. New listeners, old listeners.
Speaker 2: Wherever you are in the world, it is so great
Speaker 2: to have you here back for another episode as we
Speaker 2: of course break down the psychology of our twenties. You
Speaker 2: guys might not want me to say this, but like
Speaker 2: it or not, we are coming closer to the end
Speaker 2: of the year and also the holidays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanuka,
Speaker 2: New Year, and famously there is a huge emphasis on
Speaker 2: reflecting on the year and showing gratitude for our lives.
Speaker 2: So I thought, what better time than now to do
Speaker 2: an episode on gratitude, which for some reason I have
Speaker 2: never done before. I don't know exactly how I've missed it,
Speaker 2: but today is the day. Also, before we get into it,
Speaker 2: I want to let you know this episode is actually
Speaker 2: also a video episode on YouTube. So if you prefer
Speaker 2: watching episodes with video and getting to like see I
Speaker 2: don't know, see me speaking to you through a screen,
Speaker 2: go and check that out. I'll leave a link in
Speaker 2: the description, but let's get into it. Gratitude journals, gratitude challenges,
Speaker 2: daily affirmations. You know, I even have a Daily Affirmations
Speaker 2: for a weekly Affirmations podcast. It's everywhere. If you've ever
Speaker 2: opened Instagram, which I'm assuming you have, you have probably
Speaker 2: seen a post at some time, at some point about
Speaker 2: manifesting abundance. If you've ever been to therapy, chances are
Speaker 2: you have encountered a therapist that is encouraged gratitude. I
Speaker 2: know I shall have. It is presented to us as
Speaker 2: this most like magical cure, or be grateful and you
Speaker 2: will be happy. People talk about gratitude like it is
Speaker 2: this like magic pill, this magic way to be a
Speaker 2: more happy, well rounded person. In some ways it is,
Speaker 2: but that claim can feel a little bit too neat,
Speaker 2: a little bit too like one dimensional. Can it really
Speaker 2: fix everything? Probably not. Is it always that easy to
Speaker 2: tap into? Definitely not. But today we're gonna talk about it,
Speaker 2: and we're gonna ask that big question, does gratitude actually
Speaker 2: make us happier? And what forms all ways of expressing
Speaker 2: gratitude are the most effective. We're gonna look at of course,
Speaker 2: the psychology, do I even need to say that? Probably
Speaker 2: not the neuroscience, and also importantly the limits of gratitude,
Speaker 2: because yes, it is amazing, Yes it does fundamentally change
Speaker 2: your brain. There's also a more nuanced side to it.
Speaker 2: Toxic gratitude can elicit a lot of guilt and a
Speaker 2: pressure to be thankful, and it can actually stop or
Speaker 2: halt emotional processing. That needs to be part of the conversation.
Speaker 2: So I am excited to dive deep into this topic.
Speaker 2: It has been a long time coming. Without further ado,
Speaker 2: let's get into the psychology of gratitude. First things. First,
Speaker 2: definition of gratitude. We need to kind of get that,
Speaker 2: get that ironed out. This is actually, ironically kind of
Speaker 2: a hard concept to get a clear definition on. One
Speaker 2: of the best ways it's described and that I found
Speaker 2: it described was actually in a twenty ten paper written
Speaker 2: by researchers in Ohio who actually talked about how gratitude
Speaker 2: is both a trait, so for example, some people just
Speaker 2: naturally feel more grateful, and it's also an attitude or
Speaker 2: an emotion. It's also something that we can elicit for
Speaker 2: ourselves and kind of force into occurring. There are even
Speaker 2: more definitions about this. Is gratitude also just like a
Speaker 2: coping response? Is it a coping mechanism? Is gratitude like
Speaker 2: a spiritual experience? Is it just something that like we
Speaker 2: have to trip into to find Is it just something
Speaker 2: that comes up spontaneously. A lot of people actually have
Speaker 2: different thoughts about it. How I like to see it
Speaker 2: and how this paper defined it. And gratitude in the
Speaker 2: broader sense is an appreciation of what is valuable and
Speaker 2: meaningful to oneself. Whether it is a trait, whether it
Speaker 2: is forced, it's just an appreciation. To add to this,
Speaker 2: Psychologist Robert Edmonds and Michael mcleough, they are like the
Speaker 2: leading researchers on gratitude, and I like their definition as well.
Speaker 2: They define it as a two step process, which is
Speaker 2: recognizing that something good has happened and acknowledging that someone
Speaker 2: else or something else beyond you had to play a
Speaker 2: role in it. So the first definition is really like
Speaker 2: it's just feeling like the world or something is beautiful
Speaker 2: and being able to notice it. The second definition that
Speaker 2: we're working with is that you're able to attribute it
Speaker 2: to something. In other words, it's not just an experience,
Speaker 2: it's also a feeling of being connected, but also supported
Speaker 2: more broadly, whether it's by your family, whether it's by
Speaker 2: the God you believe in, by the universe, by nature.
Speaker 2: Whatever it is is an appreciation for that outside force. Psychologically,
Speaker 2: gratitude is seen. This is like mental superpower. Why is
Speaker 2: that well, firstly because it promotes positive appraisal or positive reappraisal. Essentially,
Speaker 2: why that's so powerful is because bad things are always
Speaker 2: going to happen. Terrible, annoying things, frustrating things are always
Speaker 2: going to occur. You can't change that. You can change
Speaker 2: how your brain interprets these experiences. Instead of fixating on
Speaker 2: what went wrong, gratitude allows you to retrain your mind
Speaker 2: to notice what's still working. You might not know this,
Speaker 2: but our brains are actually wired by default to have
Speaker 2: a negativity bias, basically to see the worst in things,
Speaker 2: to see the worst in people, to see the worst
Speaker 2: in circumstances. This has actually been a good thing in
Speaker 2: the past. It meant that we were more attuned to threats,
Speaker 2: to danger, to the poisonous plants, the big saber toothed tigers.
Speaker 2: But it also means that left unchecked, our minds are
Speaker 2: naturally quite pessimistic. Gratitude, though, is the counterbalance to this
Speaker 2: that allows us to kind of really just zoom out
Speaker 2: and see the full picture, not just the negative or
Speaker 2: shadowy parts. If we take a look at how this
Speaker 2: works cognitively, there's a few processes that are involved here.
Speaker 2: I feel like people talk about gratitude all the time,
Speaker 2: no one talks about what it's actually doing to your
Speaker 2: brain inside the skull of ours. First, gratitude allows us
Speaker 2: to direct our attention more conveniently or positively to things
Speaker 2: that we actually want to see. You can't appreciate good
Speaker 2: things if you don't look for them right and if
Speaker 2: you don't direct yourself to notice them. Gratitude builds that skill.
Speaker 2: The next is memory encoding. When we focus on positive
Speaker 2: experiences and we repeat them through those common exercises of
Speaker 2: a gratitude journal or reflection or speaking openly about them,
Speaker 2: those memories get encoded more deeply, the same way that
Speaker 2: when you study by writing and rehearsing and reflecting on
Speaker 2: your knowledge. This is objectively better than just like reading
Speaker 2: your note or listening to the lecture. Research that was
Speaker 2: published in the Journal of Positive Psychology found that so
Speaker 2: called grateful memories actually showed less fading over time even
Speaker 2: compared to other positive memories. This has actually seen a
Speaker 2: lot in dementia patients who can remember really beautiful memories
Speaker 2: with their family when they were kids, when they were younger.
Speaker 2: They're encoded almost in a separate way to other kinds
Speaker 2: of memories, mainly because they are appraised as valuable. Because
Speaker 2: they are so significant and they carry meaning, our brain
Speaker 2: kind of locks them in like this sneaky safe that
Speaker 2: it has at the back, meaning that when everything else
Speaker 2: starts to fade and decay, they remain. There's also an
Speaker 2: aspect of emotional regulation going on here. Gratitude activates the
Speaker 2: prefrontal cortext. This is the part of the brain that
Speaker 2: is responsible for emotional regulation. If you're going through a
Speaker 2: really tough time and you're stressed and you're frustrated, what
Speaker 2: gratitude actually does is allow this part of your brain
Speaker 2: to I guess, work better by having a more rational
Speaker 2: perspective and truthworth perspective on your circumstances. It allows you
Speaker 2: to hold two truths at the same time. This moment
Speaker 2: is hard, but it's not always going to be hard.
Speaker 2: There is more than this that is an incredible ability
Speaker 2: to have. Also, we have to talk about this from
Speaker 2: a more social, less individualized standpoint. Gratitude has been proven
Speaker 2: to increase pro social behavior and when practiced on an
Speaker 2: individual level, to actually make a community and a society better. Kindness, empathy, generosity,
Speaker 2: they all increase. When people have a higher level of
Speaker 2: personal gratitude, we are more likely to act in favorable
Speaker 2: ways to others and to be acting positively and strengthening
Speaker 2: relationships when we feel like there is good in the
Speaker 2: world and that other people possess good as well. So
Speaker 2: gratitude is like incredible for society as well. It's like
Speaker 2: something that really does like mend and heal fractured systems.
Speaker 2: So what does this actually do to the brain, Like
Speaker 2: neurologically that was like cognitively, what's happening like to our neurons,
Speaker 2: to our synapses to yeah, to this big organ Well
Speaker 2: I can tell you using this twenty fifteen fMRI study
Speaker 2: from these people at Indiana University. So in this study,
Speaker 2: they basically asked participants to write down letters of gratitude
Speaker 2: to people in their lives. They didn't have to send
Speaker 2: the letters, they just had to write the letters. That
Speaker 2: was enough to a grandmother, to an aunt, to an uncle,
Speaker 2: or a brother, whoever. It was three months later when
Speaker 2: those same participants were scanned in the fMRI machines, their
Speaker 2: brains showed increased activity in the medial prefrontal cortex that's
Speaker 2: the region involved in emotional regulation, in learning and decision making.
Speaker 2: Like there was physical changes to how their brain was operating.
Speaker 2: The researchers concluded that gratitude is it has a long
Speaker 2: lasting neural footprint, and they saw that footprint, I guess
Speaker 2: in trench deeper when people did this over and over
Speaker 2: and over again. Essentially, this practice changed the brain's baseline
Speaker 2: response to both positive and negative experiences. There was also
Speaker 2: a further twenty fifteen study published in Frontiers in Psychology,
Speaker 2: also using fMRI scanners, which basically induced gratitude and participants
Speaker 2: and then scanned their brain at the time. Instead of
Speaker 2: just giving these people like random gratitude prompts, instead of
Speaker 2: asking them just to write letters of gratitude, they told
Speaker 2: them stories that were really precious and beautiful. These stories
Speaker 2: actually came from real Holocaust survivors who'd been helped by
Speaker 2: strangers during the war, people who had risked their own
Speaker 2: lives to offer food, to offer shelter, to offer protection,
Speaker 2: and the participants were asked to imagine themselves as this
Speaker 2: person being helped and being rescued, to picture that moment,
Speaker 2: to feel what it would have been like to receive
Speaker 2: that kind of of help when you were just like
Speaker 2: so desperate. And as they did that, the scans showed
Speaker 2: significant activation in a couple of areas, the ventral striatum
Speaker 2: and the nucleus accumbents, both key parts of the brain's
Speaker 2: reward system. Long names, all you need to know is
Speaker 2: that these are the areas that are most active when
Speaker 2: we experience pleasure, love, or deep connection, and that activity
Speaker 2: increased even after the story was over. What's so beautiful
Speaker 2: about this study is that it's that gratitude isn't just
Speaker 2: like something that's nice. It's not just surface level. It's
Speaker 2: like viscerally rewarding, like the reward is something that we
Speaker 2: can literally see. And what's even more interesting was that
Speaker 2: they didn't even have to perform gratitude themselves to have
Speaker 2: this feeling. No one in this study actually received anything
Speaker 2: like it was entirely empathetic. Just imagining the kind of
Speaker 2: generosity was like enough to trigger the brain's reward circuits.
Speaker 2: When people say gratitude changes your brain, this is what
Speaker 2: they're talking about. This is what they are referring to.
Speaker 2: There is hard science behind why it's recommended. But and
Speaker 2: this is equally an important thing to remember only under
Speaker 2: the right conditions. Gratitude isn't something that we can actually
Speaker 2: always access, and it might not actually always be helpful.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it can backfire. Sometimes it can leave us feeling
Speaker 2: worse than before. And that's like a part of the
Speaker 2: conversation that I don't think people really want to have
Speaker 2: all the time, but we are going to have it today.
Speaker 2: How could gratitude possibly be bad for us? We're going
Speaker 2: to answer that question after this shortbreak. So here's where
Speaker 2: it gets a little bit tricky. Gratitude when it's real
Speaker 2: and when it's self motivated, is really fantastic. When it
Speaker 2: bubbles up naturally, it's even more fantastic. You know, we
Speaker 2: will have those moments where we're just like, Wow, I'm
Speaker 2: so lucky to be here, this is such a beautiful day.
Speaker 2: You go searching for that feeling, you feel incredible, you
Speaker 2: feel like like there's a lightness to you. The moment
Speaker 2: that gratitude becomes something we're told to feel or something
Speaker 2: that we owe because of our circum stances, it shifts
Speaker 2: from being an emotion to being a performance, and it
Speaker 2: stops being a resource that helps us and starts essentially
Speaker 2: becoming a tool for emotional suppression. This is where we
Speaker 2: veer into what we call toxic gratitude. This is an
Speaker 2: offshoot of toxic positivity. This is when we start to
Speaker 2: use it to bypass uncomfortable emotions, and what ends up
Speaker 2: happening is that we actually don't honor them, and we
Speaker 2: don't actually process why they happen in the first place
Speaker 2: and why that just has like deeply impacted us. You
Speaker 2: might have heard this yourself. You definitely have. It's very
Speaker 2: silent sometimes, like the use of gratitude to kind of
Speaker 2: silence emotions that people don't want to look at is
Speaker 2: sometimes invisible. But it sounds like, oh, could have been worse.
Speaker 2: It sounds like, at least I have a roof over
Speaker 2: my head. It sounds like, you know, there's someone out
Speaker 2: there who has it harder than me, so I'm just
Speaker 2: gonna shut up about it. And the thing is those
Speaker 2: statements are totally true. Yeah, someone does have it worse
Speaker 2: than you, Like people do have it harder than you.
Speaker 2: Having that kind of awareness and perspective is important. It
Speaker 2: also doesn't undercut the fact that if something is painful
Speaker 2: and sucky for you, it's still painful and sucky for you.
Speaker 2: Like how I like to I always say this to
Speaker 2: my friends, and I always say this to myself. Someone
Speaker 2: with a broken arm, it's still gonna like their arm
Speaker 2: still hurts, whether or not someone else has a broken spine,
Speaker 2: Like it's entirely separate. They are still feeling all that
Speaker 2: pain and themselves like someone else's suffering, doesn't like undercut it.
Speaker 2: There's not only a certain amount of suffering that can
Speaker 2: go around. We cannot have this idea that if your
Speaker 2: suffering isn't the absolute worst kind, you do not deserve
Speaker 2: to feel it. And sometimes the use of gratitude as
Speaker 2: a solution to these feelings is a way that we
Speaker 2: actually make people believe that. This is podcast that I
Speaker 2: love called Live Happy Now. Big fan, big fan of
Speaker 2: that podcast, And I was listening to an episode that
Speaker 2: they did with Whitney Goodman talking about the impact of
Speaker 2: toxic positivity, and what she said was that toxic positivity
Speaker 2: denies an emotion, It denies a feeling, which is actually
Speaker 2: just as bad as what that feeling might be listening
Speaker 2: in the first place. When we use toxic positivity, we're
Speaker 2: basically telling ourselves like, this emotion shouldn't exist, it's wrong.
Speaker 2: And so not only are we feeling the feeling, we're
Speaker 2: also feeling shame about the feeling. And it's obviously impossible
Speaker 2: to ignore it anyways, because we know it does exist.
Speaker 2: Otherwise we wouldn't be feeling it right now, and so
Speaker 2: the whole situation becomes a lot more confusing. Refusing in
Speaker 2: a motion or not feeling it doesn't make you more healed,
Speaker 2: because it actually means that the battle between you and
Speaker 2: that emotion is probably more of a vicious daily thing
Speaker 2: than if you processed it appropriately in the first place.
Speaker 2: If you actually let yourself just not be grateful for
Speaker 2: a little while, if you just let yourself be like,
Speaker 2: this just really really sucks, and I don't want to
Speaker 2: be grateful for my situation. I don't want to be
Speaker 2: grateful for what else I have. I don't necessarily want
Speaker 2: to be resilient right now. I don't want to be
Speaker 2: the bigger person. I just want to have some self
Speaker 2: pity that's actually and you may not think that I
Speaker 2: would say this honestly totally fine. Gratitude just sometimes doesn't
Speaker 2: feel accessible to you, and trying to force it to
Speaker 2: be actually creates this really weird paradox where the more
Speaker 2: when you try, the harder and more elusive it becomes.
Speaker 2: Gratitude requires a certain baseline level of safety. It requires
Speaker 2: the belief that even subconsciously, you know you're okay to relax,
Speaker 2: like you're okay to take in what's around you. When
Speaker 2: your nervous system is dysregulated, when it's stuck in fight, flight, freeze,
Speaker 2: or fawn, your brain is all focused on living through
Speaker 2: and getting through this experience. So it's not going to
Speaker 2: be scanning your surroundings for beauty or blessings. It's scanning
Speaker 2: for threats and threats only. It is not a choice
Speaker 2: in that moment to be ungrateful. It is actually just
Speaker 2: plain inaccessible. When we don't feel safe, the part of
Speaker 2: us that connects us, that feels joy, that expresses appreciation,
Speaker 2: it just goes offline. Because from an evolutionary perspective, again,
Speaker 2: it's not immediately necessary for how survival. The body can't
Speaker 2: access gratitude if it does, don't believe the world is
Speaker 2: safe enough to let its guard down, and yet that's
Speaker 2: often when again people double down. I saw another article
Speaker 2: from the psychologist Susan David where she talks about this
Speaker 2: cultural obsession with like good vibes and how that actually
Speaker 2: creates more emotional fragility. When we're not allowed to name pain,
Speaker 2: we can't process it, and unprocessed pain doesn't magically vanish
Speaker 2: the same way that energy doesn't magically vanish. It just
Speaker 2: hides behind all the gratitude bandages until like that defense
Speaker 2: mechanism doesn't work anymore. And look, I'm not saying that
Speaker 2: gratitude is bad. It's just that, like it can't be
Speaker 2: forced from a place of fear or from a place
Speaker 2: of shame. It can't be forced from a place of
Speaker 2: I should of shouldz. Maybe that's the best way to
Speaker 2: say it. Sometimes, like the kindest thing you can do
Speaker 2: to yourself is and do for yourself is just be like, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's just really sucks. So I want to talk about
Speaker 2: some alternatives. I feel like I've been blabbing on about
Speaker 2: that for a while. When gratitude is inaccessible, what else
Speaker 2: is there? Because we do actually need some kind of
Speaker 2: thing to hold on to what might that be if
Speaker 2: gratitude feels too heavy. One of these recommendations that I
Speaker 2: heard from someone was to just look for niceness instead.
Speaker 2: Looking for something nice feels a lot more neutral, feels
Speaker 2: way less intimidating than being like, you have to find
Speaker 2: something that you are grateful for one absolutely, just look
Speaker 2: for one small thing each day that's like you just
Speaker 2: think is cool, or you just think is beautiful. You're
Speaker 2: not necessarily grateful for it, but you know, it was
Speaker 2: really nice that the pavement smelt really beautiful after it
Speaker 2: rained today. It was really nice that, like you saw
Speaker 2: that childholding that flower on the bus. I'm not necessarily
Speaker 2: grateful for it, but it was enjoyable. It was nice
Speaker 2: to see that. When we lessen the pressure to feel
Speaker 2: this like huge expansive feeling and this expansive like impact
Speaker 2: of some outside force on our lives, we can start
Speaker 2: to just welcome in a few more moments of just
Speaker 2: like joy and pleasure and contentment throughout our day. The
Speaker 2: next thing to do if you're finding it hard to
Speaker 2: be grateful for what you have and for your life
Speaker 2: is just to do something completely new. Sometimes, and especially
Speaker 2: when life feels hard, we find it difficult to access
Speaker 2: gratitude because everything feels the same. Then like you ad
Speaker 2: a layer of like this just I'm just feeling crap
Speaker 2: onto that, like it just gets even worse. So pursue
Speaker 2: novelty over gratitude. Go to a new part of your
Speaker 2: city for the day. Make like a bucket list for
Speaker 2: where you live. Just wander around. Studying at the public
Speaker 2: library instead of studying at home. Maybe change up your
Speaker 2: weekly routine if you can, like start cooking new meals
Speaker 2: in the evening. Choose like an elaborate dessert recipe and
Speaker 2: commit to making it. Do something on Friday night that's
Speaker 2: not drinking. Go and like explore, or go to your
Speaker 2: local bouldering gym, go to like I don't know what
Speaker 2: painting class, Just like do something else. You know what
Speaker 2: me and my friends did the other day. We were
Speaker 2: having this conversation of like I'm so sick of like
Speaker 2: going out drinking on like a Saturday or Friday night,
Speaker 2: and like everything in the city feels the same. So
Speaker 2: we went to a trampoline park like the one you
Speaker 2: used to go to when you were twelve years old,
Speaker 2: and like someone would always end up like breaking something,
Speaker 2: or like ripping their jeans and it was the best
Speaker 2: night ever. Having novel experiences has been evidenced time and
Speaker 2: time again to be essential for adaptability and for your
Speaker 2: overwhel well being. Like people actually cannot thrive in situations
Speaker 2: that are completely and constantly the same. They need new stimulus.
Speaker 2: So if you're not feeling grateful, that might be a solution.
Speaker 2: Another way to experience like newness is to put yourself
Speaker 2: in someone else's shoes and to you know, create gratitude
Speaker 2: for somebody else if you can't experience it for yourself.
Speaker 2: Volunteering acts of kindness, those kinds of things are deeply powerful.
Speaker 2: Try and do like one kind thing a day for
Speaker 2: the next two weeks. Not only does this give you
Speaker 2: a sense of purpose, like I'm changing somebody else's life,
Speaker 2: even if they don't notice it, it also allows others
Speaker 2: to be grateful for you, and that can create feedback
Speaker 2: for modeling gratitude in general. When you're finding it really
Speaker 2: hard to access it, maybe you just need to create
Speaker 2: more of it for other people and it will come
Speaker 2: back to you in time. Similar to like, both of
Speaker 2: these like is just being curious novelty Curiosity somewhat similar,
Speaker 2: but it just keeps the mind open when I can't
Speaker 2: necessarily access these absolute positive emotions. Just try and explore,
Speaker 2: Just try and be interested in life, Try and find
Speaker 2: new things that you can learn about, and then see
Speaker 2: if gratitude comes some questions. You might also want to
Speaker 2: ask yourself to prompt this in your own life. Is like,
Speaker 2: when I'm looking at an experience, I might see it
Speaker 2: as only good or only bad. What is the gray area?
Speaker 2: What actually might this experience be teaching me that I
Speaker 2: don't have to be grateful for, but I don't have
Speaker 2: to be terrified of either? What might this be preparing
Speaker 2: me for? Or you know, if this was like a
Speaker 2: chapter of my life in a movie or a book
Speaker 2: and I was someone watching from the outside looking in,
Speaker 2: what's the purpose of this moment? Can I see where
Speaker 2: this is guiding me to in the future? What should
Speaker 2: my character do next? Instead of seeing things in like absolutes,
Speaker 2: this is only good, this is only bad. Yeah, Like
Speaker 2: there's zones us in on, like what's in the middle,
Speaker 2: what's like the meat of the situation? What it'm meant
Speaker 2: to be learning?
Speaker 1: And this like isn't.
Speaker 2: Supposed to be invalidating or it's not supposed to romanticize
Speaker 2: your pain. It just encourages you just just like stay
Speaker 2: engaged with like the nuances of life. And except that,
Speaker 2: like just because something doesn't make sense yet doesn't mean
Speaker 2: that it won't down the line. Like it's an acknowledgment that,
Speaker 2: especially if you're in your twenties, like you're still learning,
Speaker 2: you're still growing and adapting through life. This might be
Speaker 2: the worst thing that's ever happened to you now, but
Speaker 2: life will get bigger and like be able to hold
Speaker 2: more space for new and better things. I think the
Speaker 2: biggest takeaway from today is that gratitude is like fabulous.
Speaker 2: It's like I honestly think it's like a human gift.
Speaker 2: It's a miracle in many ways that we can like
Speaker 2: appreciate things so deeply that the only thing we can
Speaker 2: do is say that some otherworldly thing must be responsible
Speaker 2: for it. It's so beautiful that we can see beauty,
Speaker 2: and just like it's honestly an indescribable emotion. Like I
Speaker 2: imagine trying to just describe like gratitude to an alien
Speaker 2: and I just like feel like they probably wouldn't understand it.
Speaker 2: That doesn't mean that it's a moral test. You don't
Speaker 2: have to be relentlessly positive. You don't have to be
Speaker 2: grateful all the time just because it's a beautiful feeling.
Speaker 2: You don't have to pretend everything's fine. I think it's
Speaker 2: just important to know that, like you're allowed to have
Speaker 2: a diversity of emotions. But if you can access gratitude,
Speaker 2: it's not going to be a quick fix. It's not
Speaker 2: going to be some vitamin, but it is something that
Speaker 2: you can like come back to that might make life
Speaker 2: just feel a little bit better. That might be able
Speaker 2: to like hold your hand through grief and through exhaustion
Speaker 2: and through hard times and just give you, like it's
Speaker 2: like a nice place to like go and lay your
Speaker 2: head down when like everything else in world feels really terrible.
Speaker 2: Doesn't mean you like am morally obligated to feel it
Speaker 2: all the time. It's just like a superpower, and it's
Speaker 2: this brilliant thing that we're very lucky to have when
Speaker 2: we really need it. So thank you so much for
Speaker 2: listening to this episode. If you have made it this far,
Speaker 2: what's something you're grateful for? Please leave a comment below,
Speaker 2: Share why that makes you feel grateful. Share Yeah, whether
Speaker 2: it's a person, whether it's a pet, whether it's like
Speaker 2: a movie, a TV show, like the best chocolate cake
Speaker 2: you've ever had. I want to hear it. I want
Speaker 2: to know. Something I'm grateful for right now is air conditioner.
Speaker 2: It's like, genuinely like forty degrees in Sydney right now.
Speaker 2: If you're like, I don't know, if you're you do
Speaker 2: Fara and eight, it's like over one hundred degrees. And yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm so grateful for air condition I'm so grateful for
Speaker 2: the people who discovered how to make air colds. So
Speaker 2: that's my little that's my little touchdoone for the day.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go to pet thinking, God, that's nice. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I appreciate you listening. Thank you again to our research
Speaker 2: assistant Lubye Colbert for her contributions to this episode. She's amazing.
Speaker 2: We love her and we appreciate all of her work.
Speaker 2: If you want more from the Psychology of Your twenties,
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