The article below is an excerpt from the Well Enough newsletter by Emilie Lavinia. To get my latest thoughts on wellbeing, mental health and the things that help us feel a little more human, pop your email address into the box above.
Each edition dives into a topic that’s been on my mind that week – from the science behind our emotions to the small habits that genuinely make life feel lighter. You’ll also find practical tips and tricks from experts I’ve interviewed on living a happier and healthier life.
As we roll into December I’m feeling conflicted. This is my favourite time of year and I dearly want to embrace the joy of the festive season. But all around me the world is a frenetic and frightening place. My washing machine is broken. I also just received a huge vet bill and yesterday I accidentally spilled water all over my bed. Everyone I speak to is having a similar experience. This time of year can be intense, so how do we embrace joy when we feel angry, frustrated or sad?
This year I really leant into the practice of gratitude and I honestly feel that it has changed my life. Things feel more manageable, I’m able to experience a warm glow instead of feelings of jealousy or anxiety and I feel more at peace than I ever have before. I was tested this week with trains cancelled and lack of sleep but tools like meditation and gratitude have gotten me through the stress peaks.
A colleague recently asked me: “How do you actually practise gratitude?” It’s a question I’ve explored a lot through my reporting, and I was able to share a few ideas from both my own research and conversations with experts. Two of those experts – Dr Alex George and psychotherapist Anna Mathur – joined me for the season finale of the Well Enough podcast. We sat down to talk about the science of happiness, the pitfalls of toxic positivity, the role of gratitude, and how to cultivate more joy in everyday life.
Anna offered some exceptional insights during our conversation. She talked about how often we can mistake a quick dopamine hit for real happiness, and that real joy actually comes through in the moments when we are able to be authentic, move slowly and be honest with ourselves. We also talked about masking our true emotions with fake positivity, which can make it harder to recognise and access real happiness. Gratitude only works when we aren’t pretending.
“I think it gets really lonely behind the mask,” she told me. “You can really start believing that you are the only one that feels that way.”
“I have this privileged position as a therapist to see the behind the scenes of so many people. When people talk about intrusive thoughts and they talk about the internal critic, I know that I’m not alone. So when I talk openly about my own intrusive thoughts and my own mental health journey, I know factually that I’m not alone.”
We discussed how this time of year can feel overwhelming for many people, but our default is to smile and remain cheerful around others. We often behave ‘well’ because we fear the consequences of being excluded or criticised if we don’t meet others’ expectations.
“Feeling like you’ve got to hold it all together – and I’ve been the queen of that in the past – can sometimes be the defence against falling apart. If you have that trust to open up [you might wonder] what will life look like? Will everyone run away? You know, we really used to fear that vulnerability.”
During our conversation, Dr Alex explained how reducing shame and stigma can be the key to understanding and managing our emotions more effectively. He’s written a new book aimed at primary-age children to help them tap into the science of happiness and learn tools for resilience – but really, anyone can make use of his advice.
He told me: “It’s never too late to change and we can learn new habits and new ways of being at, at any age, we know that. I think, easier to form these things when you’re younger. And the way I kind of get my head around it is that if you imagine a mountain that’s had a load of snow dumped on it, the first people to hike up the mountain have a bit of a difficult job because they’ve gotta push through the snow, but everyone that follows kind of follows that path and it becomes well trodden. There’ll be a couple of routes, but there’ll be well trodden routes that you follow.”
One habit that we talked about was expressing gratitude and reframing your thoughts and experiences. Anna told me that she loves the power of the word ‘and’ – I enjoyed the way she laid out how something so simple can be so impactful. I’ll paraphrase:
I’m having a bad day and I feel anxious, fine. But what about I’m having a bad day ‘and’ I get to go home later and put my comfies on. And I get to eat my favourite meal in my warm house. And I get to put my show on and cuddle my cats. Suddenly the word ‘and’ becomes very powerful.
The other phrase that Anna highlighted (and one that I’ve relied heavily on for context over the past few years) was “I get to”. Reframing the things we have to do each day as things to be grateful for can be wildly empowering.
Sometimes when I’m tired and not in the mood for work I think, “I get to go and do this job that I fought hard to be given, and I get to help people with my writing. I don’t ‘have to’ write my newsletter and record my podcast, I get to.”
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