June 1, 2026
EP 054 Remarkable Success Without Toxic Positivity | The Real Science
Mindset success coaches won't tell you this: forcing positive thoughts makes your emotional regulation system less responsive. In this episode, Tracy exposes the dark history of toxic positivity—from Norman Vincent Peale's 1952 blueprint to today's $11 billion manifestation industry—and reveals why "good vibes only" sabotages authentic success habits. Discover the radical alternative of psychological flexibility that actually builds genuine resilience, and learn how real entrepreneurs achieve remarkable success without the mental health cost. https://YourSuccessDNA.com Tracy exposes the dark history of toxic positivity, from Norman Vincent Peale's 1952 blueprint to today's $11 billion manifestation industry. Discover why forcing positive thoughts actually makes your emotional regulation system less responsive, how the wellness industry profits from your mental health struggles, and learn the radical alternative of psychological flexibility that actually builds genuine resilience.
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The cult of positive thinking is
making you more depressed, and
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the science finally explains why.
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Here's the thing.
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Your therapist is gonna tell you
to reframe your anxiety, but your
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Instagram feed is gonna tell you that
good vibes only attract good things.
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Your productivity app is gonna
gamify your emotions like you are a
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high score waiting to be unlocked.
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And yet, with all this going on,
you're still more depressed than ever.
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Not because you're broken, no, no,
but because you have been sold a story
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that's fundamentally incompatible
with how humans actually work.
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Your Success DNA Podcast.
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Your success
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What is up?
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What is up?
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What the hell is up, my
fellow success seekers?
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Welcome back to another
episode of Your Success DNA.
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It's that podcast for my aspiring
entrepreneurs, nine-to-five escapees.
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Heck, it's really for anyone who
wants to up their game, because each
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episode delivers mindset shifts and
habit upgrades, and a little dose of
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rebellion so that you can break free
from convention, not just maybe to build
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a business, but to build an entire life
aligned with your version of success.
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So if you know someone that dreams of
ditching the grind, all while they still
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seem to be able to make time for some
self-help, there's a little sprinkle
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of personal development in there, go
ahead and forward this episode to them.
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So let's get stuck right in, shall we?
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The toxic positivity embedded in modern
self-help today doesn't start on TikTok.
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No.
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And it didn't start on TikTok.
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Heck, it didn't even start on YouTube.
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No.
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It started way back in 1952 in a small
Connecticut office when a man named
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Norman Vincent Peale published a book
called The Power of Positive Thinking.
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I've got it sitting right
up over here on my shelf.
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I've read it a couple of
times, and the timing was not
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accidental, ladies and gentlemen.
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We're talking post-World War
II America was terrified.
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The Cold War was escalating.
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Existential dread was slowly creeping
into the collective consciousness.
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And what better antidote than a spiritual
and scientific promise, which was,
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"Think good thoughts and good things
happen." It sold five million copies.
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It became doctrine.
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Peale's ideas drew from an older
tradition, the New Thought movement
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from the late 19th century, which
was already insistent that the mind
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could reshape material reality.
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Let that sink in for a second.
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By the 1990s, it had metastasized
into something, let's say, darker.
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The law of attraction, vision
boards, manifestation culture.
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We, we talked a bit about this in a
previous episode, and if you don't know
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what I'm talking about, go check that out.
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Then, in 2006, Rhonda Byrne
packaged it for a new generation
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with The Secret, turning Peale's
framework into a global phenomena.
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By 2020, it had colonized just about
every corner of wellness, productivity,
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and the mental health language.
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But here's what no one tells
you about that original movement
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Peele wasn't just selling hope.
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He was selling, wait for
it, a mechanism of control.
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If you're poor, it's not
capitalism, it's your vibration.
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If you're anxious, it's not
systemic stress, it's your thoughts.
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If you're depressed, it's not chemical
or maybe even circumstantial, it's
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because you're not grateful enough.
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You're not affirming enough.
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You're not thinking enough.
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The burden of your emotional state shifts
from the world back onto you, and you
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accepted it because the alternative, let's
be honest, that some things are genuinely
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outside of your control, is terrifying.
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Fast-forward to now, you wake
up, and you're already failing.
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Yeah, you feel me?
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You know what I'm talking about here.
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The anxiety you feel even before your
feet hit the ground isn't a signal, it's
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a sign that your mindset isn't right.
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So you grab your journal, and you
write three things that you're
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grateful for, even though you just
got fired You set an intention.
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You choose positivity.
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You optimize your thoughts like
they're a productivity hack.
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And for a moment, there's relief.
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You've done something.
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You've taken some action.
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You, my friend, are in control.
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But here's what actually happens in your
brain when you suppress a genuine emotion
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in favor of some forced positive thought.
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Research on emotional suppression,
including work cited by James Gross's
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emotional regulation framework at
Stanford, has found that people
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who try to suppress negative
emotions don't actually feel better.
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A widely referenced study from the
University of Toronto confirmed that
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their emotional regulation systems
become less responsive over time.
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You're literally training your nervous
system not to trust your own signals.
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We talked about this in
a previous episode too.
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You're teaching your brain that
what it's trying to tell you,
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like, "Hey, there's something wrong
here," yeah, that's just invalid.
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Uh, we don't need to pay
attention to that, right?
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That, my friend, is not resilience.
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That's disassociation all
dressed up as enlightenment.
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The trap deepens when you
start to internalize the logic.
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If good vibes attracts good things,
and bad things are happening to you,
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then you must be chock-full of what?
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Yeah, bad vibes.
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You caused this.
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You manifested your trauma.
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You attracted your depression.
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And now, on top of the original pain you
had, you are now carrying a bit of guilt.
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Yeah, some of you are nodding your
head like, "Damn, Tracy, you're
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talking to me." You're blaming
yourself for not being positive enough.
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This is how the good vibes
movement becomes a bit insidious.
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It doesn't just fail to help you,
which is what it says it's designed to.
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Instead, it also weaponizes
your own mind against you.
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There's a term in psychology
called toxic positivity.
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It's the excessive and ineffective
overgeneralization of a happy, optimistic
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state across all situations, resulting
in the denial, in the minimization,
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and the invalidation of your
authentic human emotional experience.
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That is the real definition
of toxic positivity.
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So in other words, it's spiritual
bypassing- With a self exalter.
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That phrase, spiritual bypassing,
I used it in a previous episode as
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well, was coined by psychologist
John Welwood back in 1984.
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No alignment with the book, but who knows?
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And it was coined to describe exactly
this, using spiritual or positive
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frameworks to avoid confronting
genuine psychological wounds.
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Yeah,
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we're gonna use this good stuff
to avoid confronting the real
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stuff, and it's everywhere.
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Someone tells you your marriage is
failing, and you respond, "Well,
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everything happens for a reason." Someone
shares that they're struggling with a
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suicidal intention, and you hit them with,
"Gratitude is the antidote to depression."
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Look, ladies and
gentlemen, let's be honest.
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These aren't solutions.
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These are thought-terminating
cliches designed to end the
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conversation so that you do not
have to sit in their discomfort, so
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you don't have to help them, right?
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'Cause sometimes helping someone
else means you gotta feel
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uncomfortable in the process.
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But, and, and this is crucial, the
problem is not positivity itself.
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Don't get me wrong.
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It's the assumption that positivity
is the default human state, and that
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negative emotions are aberrations
that need to be fixed, hauntings in
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your head that need to be exorcized.
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Psychologically, negative
emotions are data, hard stop.
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Fear is information about a threat.
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Sadness is information about a loss.
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Anger is information about a violation.
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Anxiety is information
about some uncertainty.
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These emotions evolved
because they kept us alive.
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They're not bugs in the system, right?
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You're not running around the matrix
going, "I gotta kill these things."
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No.
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They're features in the system.
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The goal is not to think your way
around them, through them, or past them.
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The goal is to feel them,
understand them, and then decide
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what the hell you need to do.
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This is what the positive
thinking movement, I think,
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got fundamentally wrong.
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It assumed that your emotional experience
was something that you could optimize.
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But let's be honest, emotions aren't
problems to be solved, they're
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experiences to be understood.
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There, it-- I think that right
there, that, that phrase right
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there is the critical difference.
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Emotions aren't problems to be solved,
they are experiences to be understood.
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When you try to solve an emotion,
you're literally fighting yourself.
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When you try to understand
an emotion, you, my friend,
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are gathering intelligence.
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Yo, see?
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Viktor Frankl, uh, I mentioned,
I've mentioned him a few times now.
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He's the Australian psychiatrist
and Holocaust survivor
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who founded logotherapy.
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He understood this deeply.
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Frankl didn't preach positivity.
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He advocated for what he called
traumatic optimism, and this is the
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ability to maintain meaning in the face
of unavoidable suffering, rather than
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pretending that the suffering isn't real.
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That, my friends, is a fundamentally
different proposition than
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just think better thoughts.
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Do you feel me?
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Of course it is.
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And that depression in some of the
more recent generations, uh, has really
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skyrocketed, and I don't think it's
because you or they are weaker, and
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it's not because they are thinking or
you're thinking the wrong thoughts.
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2023 data shows rates of major
depressive disorder in Gen Z are
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three point five times higher than
the Boomers, and I'm a Boomer.
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Clinical anxiety has tripled
over that same period, and I
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don't think this is random.
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I think this is what happens when you're
told simultaneously that anything is
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possible if you just manifest it, and
you're responsible for your own mental
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health, even if that is a character
flaw that you have to struggle with,
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and that there's a product or an
app or a course or an affirmation
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that's out there that can fix you.
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The pressure of all
that is not sustainable.
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The logic is circular, and when it
fails, and it will fail, what happens?
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Yeah, you blame yourself.
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Here's the mechanism I think
you need to understand.
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The positive thinking industry
is predicated on your failure.
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Every time you buy a manifestation
journal, you're operating from
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the assumption that your current
thoughts aren't good enough.
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Every time you pay for a mindset
coach, you are accepting the premise
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that your mind is the problem.
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Every time you see an ad for the
ultimate guide of gratitude practice, the
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subtext is you're not grateful enough.
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The industry generates $11
billion a year in the USA alone.
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Barbara Ehrenreich documented this
exhaustively in her book entitled
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Bright-Sided, showing how the relentless
promotion of your positive thinking
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doesn't just fail individuals, it
actually erodes critical thinking
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at a cultural level Let that
sink in for a moment, would you?
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It erodes critical thinking
at a cultural level.
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The industry doesn't profit from
you being well or getting better.
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It profits from you remaining
convinced that you are not
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thinking positively enough.
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They keep moving the goalposts.
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The finish line just gets
further and further away.
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The finish line recedes.
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Yeah, and this is where the generational
impact begins to become visible.
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You younger folks were raised
with participation trophies
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and you can be anything you
want type of messaging, right?
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Yeah.
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Some of us boomers were like,
"Participation trophies?
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What the hell?
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You didn't do anything.
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You just showed up."
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You were told that success is
a mindset away, and that your
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thoughts create your reality, that
the only limit is your belief.
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But then you encountered the real
world with structural equality and
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narrow opportunities and apparent
climate catastrophe looming on the
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horizon and economic uncertainty.
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Your mindset didn't manifest
financial instability.
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Your affirmations didn't stop a pandemic.
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Your vision board didn't fix
supposed systemic racism, did it?
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No.
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And instead of the world being
held accountable, you were.
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Yeah.
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See?
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So all that said, you must not
have visualized hard enough, right?
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You must not have believed enough.
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You must not have been grateful enough.
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The blame, what has happened?
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Yeah, it began to migrate inward,
and then it calcified there.
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The research is clear on what
actually helps, acceptance and
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commitment therapy, ACT, A-C-T.
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This was developed by psychologist
Steven C. Hayes, and it doesn't
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ask you to change your thoughts.
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It asks you to change your
relationship with your thoughts.
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Hayes built ACT around the concept
of psychological flexibility.
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That's the ability to feel difficult
emotions while still moving
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toward what matters to you, right?
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DBT, dialectical behavioral therapy,
teaches you to feel and to tolerate.
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Cognitive behavioral therapy, CBT,
doesn't deny your negative emotions.
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It teaches you to notice them
without being consumed by them.
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And somatic therapy recognizes
that emotion lives inside
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your body, not just your mind.
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Not a single one of these approaches
denies the value of hope or optimism.
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No, but they're not built on
the delusion that you have to
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think your way past reality.
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And, and what if the most radical
act wasn't to think positive?
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Oh, let that hang in there for a minute.
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But instead, to think honest, to sit
in the genuine pain of your situation
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without rushing out there to reframe
it, to actually feel the grief without
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optimizing it into some level of
gratitude, to acknowledge that some
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things are just genuinely freaking
hard, and no amount of manesti-
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manifestation is gonna change that.
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To accept that you might fail, and
you might feel sad about it, but
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the, both of those things can be true
without meaning you're not enough.
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Maybe you just tripped on
the final stretch, my friend.
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Doesn't mean you can't
win the race Feeling?
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Okay.
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So this is the false floor moment because
here's what the good vibes movement does
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not want you to know or won't tell you.
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The acceptance of darkness is
what actually creates resilience.
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00:13:06,620 --> 00:13:09,594
When you stop fighting your
difficult emotions, they start
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to lose their grip on you.
265
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When you stop trying to optimize
your inner world, you have the
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energy to change your outer world.
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00:13:17,351 --> 00:13:20,629
When you accept that you cannot
control your thoughts because that's
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neurologically impossible, and
you have 60,000 thoughts a dayâ¦
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Let that one roll around
in your head for a bit.
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00:13:26,933 --> 00:13:31,351
When you accept that you can't control
your thoughts, you can actually start
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to observe your thoughts and decide
which ones really matter to you.
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And here's another trap
that's waiting in the wings.
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Once you realize that toxic positivity
is, well, toxic, then the pendulum
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starts to swing back the other way.
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You might adopt a kind
of performative nihilism.
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Nothing matters anyway, so
why the hell should I try?
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Yeah.
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You might use the invalidation of
toxic thinking as an excuse to stay
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00:13:56,394 --> 00:14:00,516
s- inside your destructive patterns,
to, you know, "I'm just accepting my
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00:14:00,568 --> 00:14:04,333
darkness." Yeah, you could use acceptance
as resignation, but acceptance,
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my friends, is not resignation.
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Understanding your pain isn't an
invitation just to w- roll around
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and wallow in it like a pig.
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The goal isn't to replace
good vibes with bad vibes.
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It's to become comfortable in the
full spectrum and to develop what,
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00:14:18,742 --> 00:14:23,733
uh, Steven C. Hayes and his colleagues
call psychological flexibility, the
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00:14:23,786 --> 00:14:29,455
ability to feel sad and take action,
to be anxious and move towards your
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00:14:29,490 --> 00:14:32,299
values, to grieve and to keep going.
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00:14:32,620 --> 00:14:34,151
Yeah, I, I've been in that one.
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00:14:34,168 --> 00:14:37,751
Well, been in all those, actually
The poisoned motif here is
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00:14:37,786 --> 00:14:39,960
that the world itself vibes.
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00:14:40,568 --> 00:14:44,142
You came into this episode, or maybe
came into this world or some situation,
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00:14:44,446 --> 00:14:46,360
thinking vibes were the problem.
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00:14:46,394 --> 00:14:52,160
But vibes, the actual felt sense of
aliveness in your body, that vibe, the
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00:14:52,203 --> 00:14:56,899
genuine resonance with what matters to
you, those, those vibes are not the enemy.
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00:14:57,229 --> 00:15:04,307
The enemy is the performance of vibes,
the curation of vibes, the commodification
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00:15:04,481 --> 00:15:09,020
of vibes, the demand that you maintain
good vibes at any cost, even when
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00:15:09,107 --> 00:15:11,751
reality doesn't support those good vibes.
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00:15:12,064 --> 00:15:12,533
Yeah.
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00:15:12,568 --> 00:15:14,951
Here's what becomes
inevitable in hindsight.
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00:15:15,325 --> 00:15:18,707
The Good Vibes movement
was always a mirror.
302
00:15:18,760 --> 00:15:22,351
It reflected back to you not the
truth about how the world works,
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00:15:22,499 --> 00:15:26,012
but the anxiety of the people
that were selling that to you.
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00:15:26,020 --> 00:15:30,133
A generation, or a couple of generations,
were traumatized by uncertainty,
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00:15:30,499 --> 00:15:34,768
packaged that uncertainty as a product,
and sold it to another generation
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00:15:34,794 --> 00:15:36,620
that was already drowning in it.
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00:15:36,655 --> 00:15:37,333
And guess what?
308
00:15:37,403 --> 00:15:38,620
Many of you bought it.
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00:15:38,864 --> 00:15:42,116
Not because you're weak, don't get me
wrong, but because you were so desperate
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00:15:42,151 --> 00:15:46,012
for a system that would finally make
sense of all the damn chaos, that it would
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00:15:46,064 --> 00:15:48,655
finally give you a moniker of control.
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00:15:48,664 --> 00:15:52,803
The real trap, the one that makes
this morally unsettling, is that
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00:15:52,846 --> 00:15:54,968
some of the advice is almost true.
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00:15:55,246 --> 00:15:56,255
Gratitude does help.
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00:15:56,464 --> 00:15:57,873
Perspective does matter.
316
00:15:58,168 --> 00:16:00,099
Hope does fuel action.
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00:16:00,394 --> 00:16:04,342
But the moment you weaponize these
truths into a should, the moment you
318
00:16:04,499 --> 00:16:09,246
turn them into demands, the moment
you use them to bypass someone else's
319
00:16:09,455 --> 00:16:11,420
genuine suffering, they're poison.
320
00:16:11,751 --> 00:16:15,090
You become the person who tells
someone in the depths of depression
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00:16:15,142 --> 00:16:17,473
that they need to just think positive.
322
00:16:17,751 --> 00:16:19,925
There's a silver lining in every storm.
323
00:16:20,325 --> 00:16:21,629
I remember that when my
daughter passed away.
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00:16:22,012 --> 00:16:23,420
I wanted to punch someone in the face.
325
00:16:23,699 --> 00:16:27,142
You become the person who blames
poverty on poor vibrations.
326
00:16:27,299 --> 00:16:30,899
You become the person who, whether
intentionally or not, participates
327
00:16:30,951 --> 00:16:34,255
in the cultural gaslighting
of multiple generations, of
328
00:16:34,290 --> 00:16:35,751
at least an entire generation.
329
00:16:36,012 --> 00:16:39,699
So here's the unavoidable moral
question I want you to think about,
330
00:16:39,820 --> 00:16:41,281
and there's no clear answer, right?
331
00:16:41,333 --> 00:16:42,255
There really never is.
332
00:16:42,464 --> 00:16:46,377
If some positive thinking actually helps,
but the culture of positive thinking
333
00:16:46,446 --> 00:16:49,281
is actively harmful, where's that line?
334
00:16:49,577 --> 00:16:52,933
At what point does a helpful
tool become a weapon?
335
00:16:53,194 --> 00:16:56,716
And how do you use the genuine
insights, that hope matters, that
336
00:16:56,742 --> 00:17:00,829
perspective shifts things, and that
your attention shapes your experience,
337
00:17:00,899 --> 00:17:05,551
without falling in the trap of being
used by them to bypass reality?
338
00:17:05,873 --> 00:17:06,986
Because you can't unsee it.
339
00:17:07,177 --> 00:17:10,368
Once you recognize toxic p-
positivity, you will start
340
00:17:10,394 --> 00:17:12,557
to see it almost everywhere.
341
00:17:12,558 --> 00:17:15,775
And you are gonna have to decide
every single day Whether you're gonna
342
00:17:15,810 --> 00:17:18,888
participate in it or not, whether
you're gonna tell someone their
343
00:17:18,958 --> 00:17:22,766
sadness is just a mindset problem, or
whether you're gonna have the harder
344
00:17:22,819 --> 00:17:27,471
conversation, the deeper conversation
that acknowledges both their pain and
345
00:17:27,514 --> 00:17:29,410
their capacity to move through it.
346
00:17:29,532 --> 00:17:31,166
Yeah, the motif shifts now, right?
347
00:17:31,480 --> 00:17:32,123
But it's different.
348
00:17:32,410 --> 00:17:36,106
Good vibes, you still want them, but
now you understand that they're not the
349
00:17:36,210 --> 00:17:38,506
destination to force yourself towards.
350
00:17:38,697 --> 00:17:39,271
Mm-mm, no.
351
00:17:39,601 --> 00:17:45,010
They're a byproduct of living aligned
with reality, your reality, however messy
352
00:17:45,080 --> 00:17:49,410
that reality might be, of feeling what
needs to be felt, of taking action even
353
00:17:49,427 --> 00:17:54,227
when you're freaking scared, of accepting
that you're not broken for struggling, of
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00:17:54,332 --> 00:17:58,958
building a life not because you manifest
it, but because you showed up in it every
355
00:17:59,045 --> 00:18:04,245
single day repeatedly, even on those days
when the vibes that you felt weren't good.
356
00:18:04,523 --> 00:18:06,332
And here's the final inversion for you.
357
00:18:06,645 --> 00:18:09,932
The best way to improve your mental
health isn't to think better thoughts.
358
00:18:10,210 --> 00:18:14,071
No, it's to stop thinking about
your thoughts so damn much.
359
00:18:14,366 --> 00:18:14,697
Yeah.
360
00:18:14,714 --> 00:18:17,566
And if this episode is hitting you right
where you live, and if you're tired
361
00:18:17,619 --> 00:18:21,740
of the pressure to maintain good vibes
while your life feels genuinely hard,
362
00:18:22,053 --> 00:18:25,532
then you're gonna need to get over onto
the Unleash Your Success DNA newsletter.
363
00:18:25,619 --> 00:18:28,436
This isn't just another positivity
pushing wellness newsletter.
364
00:18:28,488 --> 00:18:32,714
This is your weekly dose of reality-based
wisdom for all my folks out there that
365
00:18:32,749 --> 00:18:35,932
want to do better, and it is⦠I'm gonna
be honest, it is a little geared towards
366
00:18:35,966 --> 00:18:39,080
my aspiring entrepreneurs and nine-to-five
escapees because, let's be honest,
367
00:18:39,184 --> 00:18:42,201
entrepreneurship is probably one of the
best personal dev programs out there.
368
00:18:42,697 --> 00:18:46,306
So if you're out there looking to build
something real, each issue continues
369
00:18:46,332 --> 00:18:50,280
to deliver mindset shifts that actually
work, habit upgrades that respect your
370
00:18:50,288 --> 00:18:54,871
humanity, and a dose of rebellion against
the systems that are keeping you small.
371
00:18:55,166 --> 00:18:58,871
No toxic positivity, no spiritual
bypassing, just honest tools for
372
00:18:58,906 --> 00:19:00,662
honest people building honest lives.
373
00:19:00,714 --> 00:19:02,453
Go over to yoursuccessdna.com.
374
00:19:02,836 --> 00:19:04,801
You'll see the newsletter
over there right ahead side.
375
00:19:04,871 --> 00:19:06,071
Go ahead and get signed on.
376
00:19:06,366 --> 00:19:09,992
In the meantime, let's answer the
question of why this matters beyond
377
00:19:10,053 --> 00:19:11,549
your individual mental health.
378
00:19:11,862 --> 00:19:16,280
Because we're all living through
a cultural moment where I think
379
00:19:16,314 --> 00:19:20,732
entire generations, at least two
of them, have been gaslit into
380
00:19:20,749 --> 00:19:24,766
believing their believed systemic
problems are their personal failures.
381
00:19:24,906 --> 00:19:28,106
Yeah, r- go ahead and hit that
rewind 15 second button right
382
00:19:28,140 --> 00:19:29,253
there and hear that again.
383
00:19:29,566 --> 00:19:32,819
You were told that if you just thought
positively enough, you could manifest
384
00:19:32,853 --> 00:19:37,740
financial stability in an economy designed
to extract wealth and push it upward.
385
00:19:37,827 --> 00:19:38,401
Yeah.
386
00:19:38,471 --> 00:19:39,880
This isn't about individual healing.
387
00:19:39,949 --> 00:19:40,731
Oh, no, no, no.
388
00:19:40,766 --> 00:19:43,758
This is about a collective
wake-- awakening.
389
00:19:43,793 --> 00:19:47,801
When you stop blaming yourself for not
being positive enough, you start seeing
390
00:19:47,827 --> 00:19:50,506
the systems that actually need to change.
391
00:19:50,786 --> 00:19:54,282
The bigger paradigm shift here
is from individual optimization
392
00:19:54,334 --> 00:19:56,039
to collective liberation.
393
00:19:56,300 --> 00:19:58,960
Yeah, so all that said, here's your
whispered wisdom for this week.
394
00:19:59,291 --> 00:20:02,595
Your emotions are data,
not problems to be solved.
395
00:20:03,013 --> 00:20:05,153
The specific action I want you to
take right after you're finished
396
00:20:05,204 --> 00:20:07,047
listening to this episode is this.
397
00:20:07,170 --> 00:20:10,648
The next time you feel a difficult
emotion, instead of immediately rushing
398
00:20:10,682 --> 00:20:16,473
out to try to fix it or reframe it or
deny it, sit with it for 60 seconds.
399
00:20:16,839 --> 00:20:19,465
Go ahead and use a timer on your phone,
on your watch, whatever it may be.
400
00:20:19,760 --> 00:20:20,352
Set a timer.
401
00:20:20,718 --> 00:20:25,066
Breathe and ask this question, "What
is this feeling trying to teach
402
00:20:25,134 --> 00:20:29,256
me?" The most radical act you will
ever do isn't to think positive.
403
00:20:29,465 --> 00:20:31,031
It will be to think honestly.
404
00:20:31,309 --> 00:20:32,126
And it's just you.
405
00:20:32,352 --> 00:20:33,500
Answer the question honestly.
406
00:20:33,795 --> 00:20:34,682
You don't have to tell me.
407
00:20:34,926 --> 00:20:35,726
Maybe I don't want to know.
408
00:20:35,796 --> 00:20:39,065
But if you want to, you can go out
there to yoursuccessdna.com and
409
00:20:39,117 --> 00:20:42,404
drop a comment below this episode
and tell me what you thought your
410
00:20:42,474 --> 00:20:43,918
emotion was trying to teach you.
411
00:20:44,021 --> 00:20:45,586
Listen, you don't need
to fix your thoughts.
412
00:20:45,865 --> 00:20:47,760
You don't need to raise your vibration.
413
00:20:47,952 --> 00:20:50,578
You don't need to manifest
yet another better mindset.
414
00:20:50,874 --> 00:20:53,934
You need to remember that you're a
human, and you're a human having a
415
00:20:53,969 --> 00:20:58,021
human experience in a world that's
genuinely challenging right now.
416
00:20:58,282 --> 00:20:59,586
I'm not going to pull any punches.
417
00:20:59,639 --> 00:21:00,369
It is.
418
00:21:00,440 --> 00:21:04,473
So stop performing positivity and
start practicing authenticity.
419
00:21:04,560 --> 00:21:06,421
The world doesn't need your good vibes.
420
00:21:06,491 --> 00:21:07,534
No, I'm sorry.
421
00:21:07,587 --> 00:21:08,595
It needs your truth.
422
00:21:08,630 --> 00:21:09,743
It needs your courage.
423
00:21:09,795 --> 00:21:13,761
And it needs your willingness to
feel deeply while acting boldly.
424
00:21:14,074 --> 00:21:16,143
So think successfully and take action.
425
00:21:18,160 --> 00:21:19,865
Your Success DNA Podcast.
426
00:21:19,900 --> 00:21:21,039
Your success is in yourâ¦
00:00:00,068 --> 00:00:03,843
The cult of positive thinking is
making you more depressed, and
2
00:00:03,860 --> 00:00:05,773
the science finally explains why.
3
00:00:06,069 --> 00:00:06,521
Here's the thing.
4
00:00:06,868 --> 00:00:09,791
Your therapist is gonna tell you
to reframe your anxiety, but your
5
00:00:09,842 --> 00:00:14,103
Instagram feed is gonna tell you that
good vibes only attract good things.
6
00:00:14,260 --> 00:00:17,860
Your productivity app is gonna
gamify your emotions like you are a
7
00:00:17,913 --> 00:00:19,146
high score waiting to be unlocked.
8
00:00:19,303 --> 00:00:23,268
And yet, with all this going on,
you're still more depressed than ever.
9
00:00:23,390 --> 00:00:26,677
Not because you're broken, no, no,
but because you have been sold a story
10
00:00:26,712 --> 00:00:30,904
that's fundamentally incompatible
with how humans actually work.
11
00:00:32,103 --> 00:00:33,616
Your Success DNA Podcast.
12
00:00:33,825 --> 00:00:34,312
Your success
13
00:00:36,033 --> 00:00:36,398
What is up?
14
00:00:36,467 --> 00:00:36,815
What is up?
15
00:00:36,885 --> 00:00:38,589
What the hell is up, my
fellow success seekers?
16
00:00:38,902 --> 00:00:41,024
Welcome back to another
episode of Your Success DNA.
17
00:00:41,093 --> 00:00:44,206
It's that podcast for my aspiring
entrepreneurs, nine-to-five escapees.
18
00:00:44,224 --> 00:00:47,824
Heck, it's really for anyone who
wants to up their game, because each
19
00:00:47,876 --> 00:00:51,285
episode delivers mindset shifts and
habit upgrades, and a little dose of
20
00:00:51,337 --> 00:00:55,406
rebellion so that you can break free
from convention, not just maybe to build
21
00:00:55,441 --> 00:00:59,824
a business, but to build an entire life
aligned with your version of success.
22
00:00:59,833 --> 00:01:03,606
So if you know someone that dreams of
ditching the grind, all while they still
23
00:01:03,667 --> 00:01:06,189
seem to be able to make time for some
self-help, there's a little sprinkle
24
00:01:06,224 --> 00:01:09,580
of personal development in there, go
ahead and forward this episode to them.
25
00:01:09,615 --> 00:01:11,041
So let's get stuck right in, shall we?
26
00:01:11,302 --> 00:01:16,606
The toxic positivity embedded in modern
self-help today doesn't start on TikTok.
27
00:01:16,902 --> 00:01:17,024
No.
28
00:01:17,528 --> 00:01:19,302
And it didn't start on TikTok.
29
00:01:19,598 --> 00:01:21,337
Heck, it didn't even start on YouTube.
30
00:01:21,406 --> 00:01:21,737
No.
31
00:01:21,806 --> 00:01:26,606
It started way back in 1952 in a small
Connecticut office when a man named
32
00:01:26,624 --> 00:01:30,320
Norman Vincent Peale published a book
called The Power of Positive Thinking.
33
00:01:30,415 --> 00:01:32,814
I've got it sitting right
up over here on my shelf.
34
00:01:32,885 --> 00:01:35,363
I've read it a couple of
times, and the timing was not
35
00:01:35,441 --> 00:01:36,937
accidental, ladies and gentlemen.
36
00:01:36,954 --> 00:01:40,154
We're talking post-World War
II America was terrified.
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The Cold War was escalating.
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Existential dread was slowly creeping
into the collective consciousness.
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And what better antidote than a spiritual
and scientific promise, which was,
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00:01:52,067 --> 00:01:55,198
"Think good thoughts and good things
happen." It sold five million copies.
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It became doctrine.
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00:01:56,885 --> 00:02:01,546
Peale's ideas drew from an older
tradition, the New Thought movement
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from the late 19th century, which
was already insistent that the mind
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could reshape material reality.
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00:02:07,885 --> 00:02:09,233
Let that sink in for a second.
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00:02:09,267 --> 00:02:14,085
By the 1990s, it had metastasized
into something, let's say, darker.
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The law of attraction, vision
boards, manifestation culture.
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We, we talked a bit about this in a
previous episode, and if you don't know
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00:02:19,911 --> 00:02:21,372
what I'm talking about, go check that out.
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Then, in 2006, Rhonda Byrne
packaged it for a new generation
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00:02:26,624 --> 00:02:31,006
with The Secret, turning Peale's
framework into a global phenomena.
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By 2020, it had colonized just about
every corner of wellness, productivity,
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and the mental health language.
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But here's what no one tells
you about that original movement
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Peele wasn't just selling hope.
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00:02:42,901 --> 00:02:46,136
He was selling, wait for
it, a mechanism of control.
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00:02:46,432 --> 00:02:49,406
If you're poor, it's not
capitalism, it's your vibration.
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00:02:49,649 --> 00:02:53,266
If you're anxious, it's not
systemic stress, it's your thoughts.
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00:02:53,371 --> 00:02:57,162
If you're depressed, it's not chemical
or maybe even circumstantial, it's
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00:02:57,215 --> 00:02:58,659
because you're not grateful enough.
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You're not affirming enough.
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You're not thinking enough.
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The burden of your emotional state shifts
from the world back onto you, and you
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accepted it because the alternative, let's
be honest, that some things are genuinely
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outside of your control, is terrifying.
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Fast-forward to now, you wake
up, and you're already failing.
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Yeah, you feel me?
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You know what I'm talking about here.
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The anxiety you feel even before your
feet hit the ground isn't a signal, it's
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a sign that your mindset isn't right.
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So you grab your journal, and you
write three things that you're
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grateful for, even though you just
got fired You set an intention.
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You choose positivity.
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You optimize your thoughts like
they're a productivity hack.
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And for a moment, there's relief.
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You've done something.
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You've taken some action.
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00:03:41,340 --> 00:03:43,132
You, my friend, are in control.
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But here's what actually happens in your
brain when you suppress a genuine emotion
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in favor of some forced positive thought.
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00:03:51,080 --> 00:03:54,784
Research on emotional suppression,
including work cited by James Gross's
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00:03:54,819 --> 00:03:58,280
emotional regulation framework at
Stanford, has found that people
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00:03:58,314 --> 00:04:01,671
who try to suppress negative
emotions don't actually feel better.
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00:04:01,723 --> 00:04:04,784
A widely referenced study from the
University of Toronto confirmed that
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00:04:04,793 --> 00:04:09,045
their emotional regulation systems
become less responsive over time.
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00:04:09,097 --> 00:04:13,132
You're literally training your nervous
system not to trust your own signals.
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00:04:13,201 --> 00:04:14,836
We talked about this in
a previous episode too.
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00:04:15,027 --> 00:04:17,184
You're teaching your brain that
what it's trying to tell you,
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00:04:17,532 --> 00:04:20,210
like, "Hey, there's something wrong
here," yeah, that's just invalid.
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00:04:20,349 --> 00:04:21,897
Uh, we don't need to pay
attention to that, right?
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00:04:22,175 --> 00:04:23,845
That, my friend, is not resilience.
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00:04:24,140 --> 00:04:27,410
That's disassociation all
dressed up as enlightenment.
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The trap deepens when you
start to internalize the logic.
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If good vibes attracts good things,
and bad things are happening to you,
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00:04:34,958 --> 00:04:36,766
then you must be chock-full of what?
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Yeah, bad vibes.
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You caused this.
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You manifested your trauma.
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You attracted your depression.
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And now, on top of the original pain you
had, you are now carrying a bit of guilt.
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00:04:46,766 --> 00:04:48,801
Yeah, some of you are nodding your
head like, "Damn, Tracy, you're
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00:04:48,819 --> 00:04:52,453
talking to me." You're blaming
yourself for not being positive enough.
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This is how the good vibes
movement becomes a bit insidious.
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It doesn't just fail to help you,
which is what it says it's designed to.
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Instead, it also weaponizes
your own mind against you.
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00:05:05,027 --> 00:05:08,227
There's a term in psychology
called toxic positivity.
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It's the excessive and ineffective
overgeneralization of a happy, optimistic
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state across all situations, resulting
in the denial, in the minimization,
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00:05:18,506 --> 00:05:22,723
and the invalidation of your
authentic human emotional experience.
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That is the real definition
of toxic positivity.
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So in other words, it's spiritual
bypassing- With a self exalter.
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That phrase, spiritual bypassing,
I used it in a previous episode as
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well, was coined by psychologist
John Welwood back in 1984.
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No alignment with the book, but who knows?
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And it was coined to describe exactly
this, using spiritual or positive
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frameworks to avoid confronting
genuine psychological wounds.
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Yeah,
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we're gonna use this good stuff
to avoid confronting the real
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stuff, and it's everywhere.
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Someone tells you your marriage is
failing, and you respond, "Well,
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00:05:58,113 --> 00:06:01,347
everything happens for a reason." Someone
shares that they're struggling with a
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00:06:01,434 --> 00:06:06,478
suicidal intention, and you hit them with,
"Gratitude is the antidote to depression."
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Look, ladies and
gentlemen, let's be honest.
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These aren't solutions.
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These are thought-terminating
cliches designed to end the
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00:06:13,817 --> 00:06:18,600
conversation so that you do not
have to sit in their discomfort, so
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you don't have to help them, right?
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'Cause sometimes helping someone
else means you gotta feel
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uncomfortable in the process.
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But, and, and this is crucial, the
problem is not positivity itself.
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Don't get me wrong.
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It's the assumption that positivity
is the default human state, and that
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negative emotions are aberrations
that need to be fixed, hauntings in
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your head that need to be exorcized.
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Psychologically, negative
emotions are data, hard stop.
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Fear is information about a threat.
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Sadness is information about a loss.
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Anger is information about a violation.
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00:06:49,921 --> 00:06:52,791
Anxiety is information
about some uncertainty.
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These emotions evolved
because they kept us alive.
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00:06:56,565 --> 00:06:58,478
They're not bugs in the system, right?
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You're not running around the matrix
going, "I gotta kill these things."
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00:07:00,947 --> 00:07:01,278
No.
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00:07:01,591 --> 00:07:03,347
They're features in the system.
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The goal is not to think your way
around them, through them, or past them.
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00:07:07,104 --> 00:07:11,400
The goal is to feel them,
understand them, and then decide
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what the hell you need to do.
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This is what the positive
thinking movement, I think,
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got fundamentally wrong.
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It assumed that your emotional experience
was something that you could optimize.
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But let's be honest, emotions aren't
problems to be solved, they're
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experiences to be understood.
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There, it-- I think that right
there, that, that phrase right
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there is the critical difference.
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Emotions aren't problems to be solved,
they are experiences to be understood.
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00:07:36,579 --> 00:07:40,544
When you try to solve an emotion,
you're literally fighting yourself.
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When you try to understand
an emotion, you, my friend,
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are gathering intelligence.
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Yo, see?
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Viktor Frankl, uh, I mentioned,
I've mentioned him a few times now.
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He's the Australian psychiatrist
and Holocaust survivor
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who founded logotherapy.
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He understood this deeply.
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Frankl didn't preach positivity.
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He advocated for what he called
traumatic optimism, and this is the
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ability to maintain meaning in the face
of unavoidable suffering, rather than
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pretending that the suffering isn't real.
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That, my friends, is a fundamentally
different proposition than
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just think better thoughts.
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Do you feel me?
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Of course it is.
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And that depression in some of the
more recent generations, uh, has really
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skyrocketed, and I don't think it's
because you or they are weaker, and
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it's not because they are thinking or
you're thinking the wrong thoughts.
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2023 data shows rates of major
depressive disorder in Gen Z are
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three point five times higher than
the Boomers, and I'm a Boomer.
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Clinical anxiety has tripled
over that same period, and I
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don't think this is random.
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I think this is what happens when you're
told simultaneously that anything is
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possible if you just manifest it, and
you're responsible for your own mental
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health, even if that is a character
flaw that you have to struggle with,
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and that there's a product or an
app or a course or an affirmation
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that's out there that can fix you.
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The pressure of all
that is not sustainable.
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The logic is circular, and when it
fails, and it will fail, what happens?
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Yeah, you blame yourself.
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00:09:09,970 --> 00:09:12,405
Here's the mechanism I think
you need to understand.
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The positive thinking industry
is predicated on your failure.
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Every time you buy a manifestation
journal, you're operating from
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00:09:19,757 --> 00:09:22,557
the assumption that your current
thoughts aren't good enough.
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00:09:22,853 --> 00:09:26,209
Every time you pay for a mindset
coach, you are accepting the premise
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that your mind is the problem.
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00:09:28,140 --> 00:09:32,296
Every time you see an ad for the
ultimate guide of gratitude practice, the
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subtext is you're not grateful enough.
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The industry generates $11
billion a year in the USA alone.
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Barbara Ehrenreich documented this
exhaustively in her book entitled
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Bright-Sided, showing how the relentless
promotion of your positive thinking
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doesn't just fail individuals, it
actually erodes critical thinking
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at a cultural level Let that
sink in for a moment, would you?
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It erodes critical thinking
at a cultural level.
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The industry doesn't profit from
you being well or getting better.
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It profits from you remaining
convinced that you are not
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thinking positively enough.
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They keep moving the goalposts.
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The finish line just gets
further and further away.
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The finish line recedes.
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Yeah, and this is where the generational
impact begins to become visible.
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You younger folks were raised
with participation trophies
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00:10:20,721 --> 00:10:23,939
and you can be anything you
want type of messaging, right?
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Yeah.
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Some of us boomers were like,
"Participation trophies?
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00:10:27,173 --> 00:10:27,608
What the hell?
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00:10:27,678 --> 00:10:28,773
You didn't do anything.
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You just showed up."
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00:10:30,408 --> 00:10:33,608
You were told that success is
a mindset away, and that your
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00:10:33,643 --> 00:10:37,313
thoughts create your reality, that
the only limit is your belief.
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00:10:37,582 --> 00:10:41,565
But then you encountered the real
world with structural equality and
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narrow opportunities and apparent
climate catastrophe looming on the
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00:10:45,730 --> 00:10:48,252
horizon and economic uncertainty.
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Your mindset didn't manifest
financial instability.
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Your affirmations didn't stop a pandemic.
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Your vision board didn't fix
supposed systemic racism, did it?
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No.
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And instead of the world being
held accountable, you were.
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00:11:01,730 --> 00:11:01,869
Yeah.
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00:11:02,165 --> 00:11:02,391
See?
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So all that said, you must not
have visualized hard enough, right?
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You must not have believed enough.
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You must not have been grateful enough.
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The blame, what has happened?
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Yeah, it began to migrate inward,
and then it calcified there.
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The research is clear on what
actually helps, acceptance and
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commitment therapy, ACT, A-C-T.
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00:11:22,373 --> 00:11:25,947
This was developed by psychologist
Steven C. Hayes, and it doesn't
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00:11:26,043 --> 00:11:28,060
ask you to change your thoughts.
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00:11:28,165 --> 00:11:31,747
It asks you to change your
relationship with your thoughts.
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Hayes built ACT around the concept
of psychological flexibility.
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00:11:35,921 --> 00:11:38,973
That's the ability to feel difficult
emotions while still moving
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00:11:39,104 --> 00:11:41,469
toward what matters to you, right?
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00:11:41,713 --> 00:11:46,182
DBT, dialectical behavioral therapy,
teaches you to feel and to tolerate.
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00:11:46,495 --> 00:11:51,121
Cognitive behavioral therapy, CBT,
doesn't deny your negative emotions.
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00:11:51,156 --> 00:11:55,121
It teaches you to notice them
without being consumed by them.
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00:11:55,694 --> 00:11:59,086
And somatic therapy recognizes
that emotion lives inside
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your body, not just your mind.
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00:12:01,120 --> 00:12:06,320
Not a single one of these approaches
denies the value of hope or optimism.
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00:12:06,546 --> 00:12:10,477
No, but they're not built on
the delusion that you have to
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00:12:10,616 --> 00:12:12,651
think your way past reality.
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00:12:12,790 --> 00:12:16,512
And, and what if the most radical
act wasn't to think positive?
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00:12:16,825 --> 00:12:17,938
Oh, let that hang in there for a minute.
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But instead, to think honest, to sit
in the genuine pain of your situation
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00:12:23,416 --> 00:12:27,678
without rushing out there to reframe
it, to actually feel the grief without
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00:12:27,764 --> 00:12:31,816
optimizing it into some level of
gratitude, to acknowledge that some
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00:12:31,851 --> 00:12:36,146
things are just genuinely freaking
hard, and no amount of manesti-
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00:12:36,216 --> 00:12:37,920
manifestation is gonna change that.
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00:12:38,113 --> 00:12:42,303
To accept that you might fail, and
you might feel sad about it, but
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00:12:42,355 --> 00:12:46,338
the, both of those things can be true
without meaning you're not enough.
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00:12:46,912 --> 00:12:49,938
Maybe you just tripped on
the final stretch, my friend.
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Doesn't mean you can't
win the race Feeling?
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00:12:52,742 --> 00:12:53,142
Okay.
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00:12:53,194 --> 00:12:58,994
So this is the false floor moment because
here's what the good vibes movement does
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00:12:59,073 --> 00:13:01,646
not want you to know or won't tell you.
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00:13:01,916 --> 00:13:06,360
The acceptance of darkness is
what actually creates resilience.
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00:13:06,620 --> 00:13:09,594
When you stop fighting your
difficult emotions, they start
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00:13:09,629 --> 00:13:10,707
to lose their grip on you.
265
00:13:11,003 --> 00:13:14,707
When you stop trying to optimize
your inner world, you have the
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00:13:14,899 --> 00:13:17,055
energy to change your outer world.
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00:13:17,351 --> 00:13:20,629
When you accept that you cannot
control your thoughts because that's
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00:13:20,655 --> 00:13:24,794
neurologically impossible, and
you have 60,000 thoughts a dayâ¦
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Let that one roll around
in your head for a bit.
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00:13:26,933 --> 00:13:31,351
When you accept that you can't control
your thoughts, you can actually start
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to observe your thoughts and decide
which ones really matter to you.
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And here's another trap
that's waiting in the wings.
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Once you realize that toxic positivity
is, well, toxic, then the pendulum
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starts to swing back the other way.
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You might adopt a kind
of performative nihilism.
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Nothing matters anyway, so
why the hell should I try?
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Yeah.
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You might use the invalidation of
toxic thinking as an excuse to stay
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s- inside your destructive patterns,
to, you know, "I'm just accepting my
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darkness." Yeah, you could use acceptance
as resignation, but acceptance,
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my friends, is not resignation.
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Understanding your pain isn't an
invitation just to w- roll around
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and wallow in it like a pig.
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The goal isn't to replace
good vibes with bad vibes.
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It's to become comfortable in the
full spectrum and to develop what,
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uh, Steven C. Hayes and his colleagues
call psychological flexibility, the
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ability to feel sad and take action,
to be anxious and move towards your
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values, to grieve and to keep going.
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Yeah, I, I've been in that one.
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Well, been in all those, actually
The poisoned motif here is
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that the world itself vibes.
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You came into this episode, or maybe
came into this world or some situation,
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thinking vibes were the problem.
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But vibes, the actual felt sense of
aliveness in your body, that vibe, the
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genuine resonance with what matters to
you, those, those vibes are not the enemy.
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The enemy is the performance of vibes,
the curation of vibes, the commodification
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of vibes, the demand that you maintain
good vibes at any cost, even when
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reality doesn't support those good vibes.
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Yeah.
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Here's what becomes
inevitable in hindsight.
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The Good Vibes movement
was always a mirror.
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It reflected back to you not the
truth about how the world works,
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but the anxiety of the people
that were selling that to you.
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A generation, or a couple of generations,
were traumatized by uncertainty,
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packaged that uncertainty as a product,
and sold it to another generation
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that was already drowning in it.
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And guess what?
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Many of you bought it.
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Not because you're weak, don't get me
wrong, but because you were so desperate
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for a system that would finally make
sense of all the damn chaos, that it would
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finally give you a moniker of control.
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The real trap, the one that makes
this morally unsettling, is that
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some of the advice is almost true.
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Gratitude does help.
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Perspective does matter.
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Hope does fuel action.
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But the moment you weaponize these
truths into a should, the moment you
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turn them into demands, the moment
you use them to bypass someone else's
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genuine suffering, they're poison.
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00:16:11,751 --> 00:16:15,090
You become the person who tells
someone in the depths of depression
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that they need to just think positive.
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There's a silver lining in every storm.
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00:16:20,325 --> 00:16:21,629
I remember that when my
daughter passed away.
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I wanted to punch someone in the face.
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You become the person who blames
poverty on poor vibrations.
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00:16:27,299 --> 00:16:30,899
You become the person who, whether
intentionally or not, participates
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00:16:30,951 --> 00:16:34,255
in the cultural gaslighting
of multiple generations, of
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00:16:34,290 --> 00:16:35,751
at least an entire generation.
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So here's the unavoidable moral
question I want you to think about,
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and there's no clear answer, right?
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There really never is.
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00:16:42,464 --> 00:16:46,377
If some positive thinking actually helps,
but the culture of positive thinking
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00:16:46,446 --> 00:16:49,281
is actively harmful, where's that line?
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00:16:49,577 --> 00:16:52,933
At what point does a helpful
tool become a weapon?
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00:16:53,194 --> 00:16:56,716
And how do you use the genuine
insights, that hope matters, that
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00:16:56,742 --> 00:17:00,829
perspective shifts things, and that
your attention shapes your experience,
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00:17:00,899 --> 00:17:05,551
without falling in the trap of being
used by them to bypass reality?
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00:17:05,873 --> 00:17:06,986
Because you can't unsee it.
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00:17:07,177 --> 00:17:10,368
Once you recognize toxic p-
positivity, you will start
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00:17:10,394 --> 00:17:12,557
to see it almost everywhere.
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00:17:12,558 --> 00:17:15,775
And you are gonna have to decide
every single day Whether you're gonna
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00:17:15,810 --> 00:17:18,888
participate in it or not, whether
you're gonna tell someone their
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00:17:18,958 --> 00:17:22,766
sadness is just a mindset problem, or
whether you're gonna have the harder
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00:17:22,819 --> 00:17:27,471
conversation, the deeper conversation
that acknowledges both their pain and
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00:17:27,514 --> 00:17:29,410
their capacity to move through it.
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00:17:29,532 --> 00:17:31,166
Yeah, the motif shifts now, right?
347
00:17:31,480 --> 00:17:32,123
But it's different.
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00:17:32,410 --> 00:17:36,106
Good vibes, you still want them, but
now you understand that they're not the
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destination to force yourself towards.
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00:17:38,697 --> 00:17:39,271
Mm-mm, no.
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They're a byproduct of living aligned
with reality, your reality, however messy
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00:17:45,080 --> 00:17:49,410
that reality might be, of feeling what
needs to be felt, of taking action even
353
00:17:49,427 --> 00:17:54,227
when you're freaking scared, of accepting
that you're not broken for struggling, of
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00:17:54,332 --> 00:17:58,958
building a life not because you manifest
it, but because you showed up in it every
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00:17:59,045 --> 00:18:04,245
single day repeatedly, even on those days
when the vibes that you felt weren't good.
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00:18:04,523 --> 00:18:06,332
And here's the final inversion for you.
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00:18:06,645 --> 00:18:09,932
The best way to improve your mental
health isn't to think better thoughts.
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00:18:10,210 --> 00:18:14,071
No, it's to stop thinking about
your thoughts so damn much.
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00:18:14,366 --> 00:18:14,697
Yeah.
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00:18:14,714 --> 00:18:17,566
And if this episode is hitting you right
where you live, and if you're tired
361
00:18:17,619 --> 00:18:21,740
of the pressure to maintain good vibes
while your life feels genuinely hard,
362
00:18:22,053 --> 00:18:25,532
then you're gonna need to get over onto
the Unleash Your Success DNA newsletter.
363
00:18:25,619 --> 00:18:28,436
This isn't just another positivity
pushing wellness newsletter.
364
00:18:28,488 --> 00:18:32,714
This is your weekly dose of reality-based
wisdom for all my folks out there that
365
00:18:32,749 --> 00:18:35,932
want to do better, and it is⦠I'm gonna
be honest, it is a little geared towards
366
00:18:35,966 --> 00:18:39,080
my aspiring entrepreneurs and nine-to-five
escapees because, let's be honest,
367
00:18:39,184 --> 00:18:42,201
entrepreneurship is probably one of the
best personal dev programs out there.
368
00:18:42,697 --> 00:18:46,306
So if you're out there looking to build
something real, each issue continues
369
00:18:46,332 --> 00:18:50,280
to deliver mindset shifts that actually
work, habit upgrades that respect your
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00:18:50,288 --> 00:18:54,871
humanity, and a dose of rebellion against
the systems that are keeping you small.
371
00:18:55,166 --> 00:18:58,871
No toxic positivity, no spiritual
bypassing, just honest tools for
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00:18:58,906 --> 00:19:00,662
honest people building honest lives.
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00:19:00,714 --> 00:19:02,453
Go over to yoursuccessdna.com.
374
00:19:02,836 --> 00:19:04,801
You'll see the newsletter
over there right ahead side.
375
00:19:04,871 --> 00:19:06,071
Go ahead and get signed on.
376
00:19:06,366 --> 00:19:09,992
In the meantime, let's answer the
question of why this matters beyond
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your individual mental health.
378
00:19:11,862 --> 00:19:16,280
Because we're all living through
a cultural moment where I think
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00:19:16,314 --> 00:19:20,732
entire generations, at least two
of them, have been gaslit into
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00:19:20,749 --> 00:19:24,766
believing their believed systemic
problems are their personal failures.
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00:19:24,906 --> 00:19:28,106
Yeah, r- go ahead and hit that
rewind 15 second button right
382
00:19:28,140 --> 00:19:29,253
there and hear that again.
383
00:19:29,566 --> 00:19:32,819
You were told that if you just thought
positively enough, you could manifest
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00:19:32,853 --> 00:19:37,740
financial stability in an economy designed
to extract wealth and push it upward.
385
00:19:37,827 --> 00:19:38,401
Yeah.
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00:19:38,471 --> 00:19:39,880
This isn't about individual healing.
387
00:19:39,949 --> 00:19:40,731
Oh, no, no, no.
388
00:19:40,766 --> 00:19:43,758
This is about a collective
wake-- awakening.
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00:19:43,793 --> 00:19:47,801
When you stop blaming yourself for not
being positive enough, you start seeing
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00:19:47,827 --> 00:19:50,506
the systems that actually need to change.
391
00:19:50,786 --> 00:19:54,282
The bigger paradigm shift here
is from individual optimization
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00:19:54,334 --> 00:19:56,039
to collective liberation.
393
00:19:56,300 --> 00:19:58,960
Yeah, so all that said, here's your
whispered wisdom for this week.
394
00:19:59,291 --> 00:20:02,595
Your emotions are data,
not problems to be solved.
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00:20:03,013 --> 00:20:05,153
The specific action I want you to
take right after you're finished
396
00:20:05,204 --> 00:20:07,047
listening to this episode is this.
397
00:20:07,170 --> 00:20:10,648
The next time you feel a difficult
emotion, instead of immediately rushing
398
00:20:10,682 --> 00:20:16,473
out to try to fix it or reframe it or
deny it, sit with it for 60 seconds.
399
00:20:16,839 --> 00:20:19,465
Go ahead and use a timer on your phone,
on your watch, whatever it may be.
400
00:20:19,760 --> 00:20:20,352
Set a timer.
401
00:20:20,718 --> 00:20:25,066
Breathe and ask this question, "What
is this feeling trying to teach
402
00:20:25,134 --> 00:20:29,256
me?" The most radical act you will
ever do isn't to think positive.
403
00:20:29,465 --> 00:20:31,031
It will be to think honestly.
404
00:20:31,309 --> 00:20:32,126
And it's just you.
405
00:20:32,352 --> 00:20:33,500
Answer the question honestly.
406
00:20:33,795 --> 00:20:34,682
You don't have to tell me.
407
00:20:34,926 --> 00:20:35,726
Maybe I don't want to know.
408
00:20:35,796 --> 00:20:39,065
But if you want to, you can go out
there to yoursuccessdna.com and
409
00:20:39,117 --> 00:20:42,404
drop a comment below this episode
and tell me what you thought your
410
00:20:42,474 --> 00:20:43,918
emotion was trying to teach you.
411
00:20:44,021 --> 00:20:45,586
Listen, you don't need
to fix your thoughts.
412
00:20:45,865 --> 00:20:47,760
You don't need to raise your vibration.
413
00:20:47,952 --> 00:20:50,578
You don't need to manifest
yet another better mindset.
414
00:20:50,874 --> 00:20:53,934
You need to remember that you're a
human, and you're a human having a
415
00:20:53,969 --> 00:20:58,021
human experience in a world that's
genuinely challenging right now.
416
00:20:58,282 --> 00:20:59,586
I'm not going to pull any punches.
417
00:20:59,639 --> 00:21:00,369
It is.
418
00:21:00,440 --> 00:21:04,473
So stop performing positivity and
start practicing authenticity.
419
00:21:04,560 --> 00:21:06,421
The world doesn't need your good vibes.
420
00:21:06,491 --> 00:21:07,534
No, I'm sorry.
421
00:21:07,587 --> 00:21:08,595
It needs your truth.
422
00:21:08,630 --> 00:21:09,743
It needs your courage.
423
00:21:09,795 --> 00:21:13,761
And it needs your willingness to
feel deeply while acting boldly.
424
00:21:14,074 --> 00:21:16,143
So think successfully and take action.
425
00:21:18,160 --> 00:21:19,865
Your Success DNA Podcast.
426
00:21:19,900 --> 00:21:21,039
Your success is in yourâ¦
