146. Feel Hopeless? It's Out There (and in you too)
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Welcome to Joy Lab!: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Joy Lab podcast, where we help you uncover and foster your most joyful self. Your hosts, Dr. Henry Emmons and Dr. Aimee Prasek, bring you the ideal mix of soulful and scientifically sound tools to spark your joy, even when it feels dark. When you're ready to experiment with more joy, combine this podcast with the full Joy Lab program over at JoyLab.coach
Henry: Hello, I'm Henry Emmons, and welcome to Joy Lab.
Aimee: And I'm Aimee Prasek. Here at Joy Lab, we infuse science with soul to help you build your resilience and uncover your joy. And today we are talking about hope. Which is our element for May, our element of joy. And we were talking about this outside in approach to hope. So, let me explain that briefly. By that, I mean that we can boost our own hope, the hope we have for our own growth and resilience, by being [00:01:00] hopeful for the world around us.
And just to be clear, hope matters for mental health. There's so much data on that. We're not going to get into all that evidence. But you know, having this very realistic, hopeful perspective is nourishing. And it benefits absolutely nearly every aspect of our wellbeing. So there's three things we want to dig into for this episode.
I'll lay them out right now, and then we're going to kind of dig into them. First, maybe my favorite, you can be a pessimist and a hopeful person.
Henry: Why Why do you like that so much, Aimee?
Aimee: Cause I'm a pessimist and a hopeful person. Trying to affirm my pessimism. Second, uh, this is not toxic positivity. Another one of my favorite topics. So we are talking about a general sense of hope for our planet, all the creatures on it, including us humans.
Third, [00:02:00] our outer hope can be a mirror of our inner hope.
Henry: I look forward to getting into all of this.
Aimee: Yeah, let's do it.
Henry: So I'm going to start by bringing up one of the best known studies that, at least that I think, that was ever done in psychology. And this is on what's called learned helplessness. Ironically, one of the researchers, was a founder of positive psychology, probably the best known, uh, Martin Seligman.
Now this study sounds truly terrible. They gave electric shocks to dogs and no matter what the dogs did, they could not escape the shock. So they learned to be helpless. Now later when the dogs were able to prevent the shocks, they didn't even try. because they had learned to feel helpless as if there was nothing they could do to change their really bad [00:03:00] circumstances.
Now this concept of learned helplessness is often linked to depression. Although I think it's a little hard to say which comes first, the depression or that sense of helplessness. The same psychologist, Martin Seligman later developed a theory that he called learned hopefulness, as an antidote to depression. The idea, which we believe in here in Joy Lab, is that hope is a skill that can be learned.
A very helpful skill, as Aimee pointed out. The research is unequivocal about this. Because with it, we can participate in creating our future. In other words, having hope gives us a say in how things turn out. We still can't control things, obviously, but with hope, we at least believe that we can have some influence on the outcome for the better. So with that belief as a foundation, [00:04:00] we can develop other skills, just like we do in resilience training or in the Joy Lab program, to be able to face whatever emotion, whatever stress, whatever loss comes our way, and still be able to maintain some access to joy.
Aimee: Yeah, I'll just give an immediate example of hope as well. The evolved ethical rules in research. There's still garbage studies that abuse animals for no reason. Take makeup or household products, for example. But we have gotten better. We've come a long ways from that terrible study on learned helplessness.
So there's hope right there. And room for improvement as well. They coexist. And there's something to that, just as you're describing hope, I think, Henry, that's really important. There's something about autonomy and agency that comes with hope that I think is really interesting. I love that term, learned hopefulness.
That's it. It's a [00:05:00] skill we can all train. We can step into our agency, into some autonomy, even pessimists. So let's touch on that first point. Uh, I am what some folks would call a pessimist. I actually consider myself having a healthy survival bias. That's my, my term to describe myself. Uh, sounds better. I'd love to get into that in a future episode as well. Why I think the optimist versus pessimist sort of classifications actually don't mean a whole lot. They're sort of poorly defined, operationally defined. We also touched on this in a previous episode, Henry, when you discussed temperament, I think that's very helpful and I'll link to that in the show notes.
Anyway, a pessimist might have a first thought that pops up in response to something they see. Some media or someone doing something right in front of them, they probably will jump to a negative thought, but then what? And that's what [00:06:00] learned hopefulness, that's where our work in Joy Lab comes in, right?
We can practice awareness of our thoughts. Um, creating space between our thoughts and our reactions. So we aren't just letting random or biased or false thoughts pull us around all day into a pit of despair. And I've absolutely been there. If I let my survival bias run wild, if I let those more negative, pessimistic thoughts go crazy, then it absolutely trashes my hope.
But I don't have to let that happen. I have agency. I can train like we do in the Joy Lab program. I can train my hope muscles so that even if my first thought is that the situation is garbage and I will never see my way out, then I can step back. I can appreciate my survival bias as a tool that's trying to help me stay safe and help others stay safe.
And then I can see what the situation really is. And with the [00:07:00] knowledge that I am a resilient person, right? We all are. And then hope can make its way in.
Henry: So, I consider myself an optimist.
The very fact that I say that tells you that I'm probably an
Aimee: An optimist.
Yeah.
Henry: But you know, this is similar to what you were saying earlier, Aimee. I actually believe that we are all optimists. And we are all pessimists. It kind of just depends on the day, you know, or on our circumstances, or who knows what variables, but both of those things are in us. Like so many things, the question is, which one do we feed the most? What are we practicing the most? Thinking like a pessimist or like an optimist? It's true that some of us are more prone to having negative ruminations than others, and I think that has to do with [00:08:00] temperament, hardwiring, our mind body type. But we all do ruminate from time to time. It just takes a little bit of learning and a lot of practice, I think to become skillful at breaking that pattern of rumination. And it is the same kind of process that we have mentioned before. Really quickly, first, you see what is. Ah, yes, this is me ruminating. Second, you accept what is. This is just what my mind does. It doesn't mean anything more than that. And then, finally, you choose wise action. There's really nothing here. I think I'll just turn my attention to something else. Something positive, maybe.
Aimee: Yes. Yeah, we, I think, perfectly said we are all optimists and pessimists. And we can train. It's a perfect [00:09:00] transition as well to this second point about toxic positivity.
So here's why this outside in perspective is not toxic positivity. Let me just give some data here. Measures of poverty, infant and maternal mortality, violence, lifespan, access to toilets, starvation, malnourishment... These measures of human health have improved dramatically since we've been measuring them.
Of course, there are pockets of exception and those matter, but overall, we are doing better. As a global community, we are doing better. All of us, all of us listening as well, we are resilient. Hope is in our DNA. I truly believe that. Whether you are a pessimist or an optimist, it doesn't matter. Hope is this evolutionary trait built into us. This is not unrealistic, toxic expressions of hope. But the realistic hope that is built on our inner [00:10:00] resilience, our collective pull to create a better world for ourselves and future generations. I'll give a really basic example that I love about something called innate optimism, which is something raised up by neuroscientist Dr. Tali Sharot. So innate optimism is this phenomenon essentially, of how us humans often believe that we like more so us as an individual or locally, believe that we can beat the odds. Here's what cracks me up. I don't know why. Marriage. Marriage is my example here because marriage
Henry: marriage is what cracks you up?
Aimee: Kind of, it is a funny institution.
So here's the example. Most people go into their first marriage totally certain that this is it. This is the one love story that will survive the generations. But statistically, it is very likely it won't, right? Divorce [00:11:00] is very common. Not a failure. It's just a common thing that happens. But we think, oh, not this time, not for me, not for our relationship.
That's innate optimism. This idea that, you know, you can defy those odds. And I'm not trashing the institution of marriage or monogamy or anything. It's just more to say that we are hopeful creatures. We can train that hope in really good ways to nourish ourselves. That's what matters. And hope is great when a relationship chapter ends, right?
A divorce, a breakup, whatever. The fact that something doesn't last forever is no argument against hope or innate optimism.
Henry: So I'm seeing a middle path here, Aimee. Something between learned helplessness and toxic positivity. That's where we want to be, in between. So just to stay with your example of relationships for a second, [00:12:00] both of those extremes might keep us in a truly unhealthy relationship for much longer than is good for us.
Aimee: Yes.
Henry: So being hopeful, but also realistic, you know, one might realize, okay, it's this, it's time for me to move on from this particular relationship. And then when one is ready, start looking for something better for themselves.
Aimee: Yeah, I think that's such a great point. Healthy hope is pretty discerning, I think, which is interesting. It has this discernment along with it. It's not this myopic kind of cheerleading that it sometimes gets illustrated as. Um, so related to our first point, I love this saying: It doesn't matter if you see the glass as half full or half empty as long as you see it as refillable.
Hmm.
I love that.
Henry: I like that too. I haven't heard that. [00:13:00]
Aimee: Right? I don't care if it's half empty or half full. It doesn't matter. Can you refill it? Because it will drain out at some point, multiple times. So that'll transition us, I think, into our, our last point here.
This idea that what we see in the world, the hope that we do or don't have can be a reflection for the hope that we have for ourselves. So if we see the world as a dumpster fire of dum dums and criminals, which is where I can go sometimes, then it can be really easy to see ourselves that way too.
To feel that we are broken. That we don't measure up, we're not able to meet some harsh or unfair expectations that we've set for ourselves. And it's of course not always the case, right? You might be working at a job that sucks and the people there are burned out and mean and the company is tanking. The lack of hope in those situations is not what we're getting into here.
It's [00:14:00] this broader sense of how we see our world. Like, is it fire and brimstone full of hopeless people? If so, it might be the case that you're not giving yourself the credit you deserve either. You're not seeing your own resilience. You're not seeing the amazing person that you are. You're not tapping into your inner hope.
And I think that can be hard to dig into, um, to see that in ourselves. I did a solid 12 sessions of CBT through my university services during undergrad to work on that, to get out of that dumpster fire. So therapy is a great tool here. Along with that, uh, and the strategies we work on in Joy Lab program as well.
Along with that, you can also shift the perspective externally, and that's that outside in approach we're talking about. It's the same way I think that we talk about sympathetic joy, one of our elements of joy, our December element. It's like sympathetic or social hope. So we can look for and through the [00:15:00] eyes of hope and begin to see what is true.
People are trying their best. We are doing better just like us ourselves, right? The world is getting better. We are trying. Noticing those bits of hope happening around us and soaking in that can be really transformative for our own inner hope.
Henry: So, before we close, I want to share something about how we got inspired to do this episode. So, we came across an article recently from The Atlantic. The title of the article was, "The World Really Is Getting Better." And that title just jumped out at me. It's an interview with Bill Gates about the work of their foundation.
And I think, you know, in reading this this interview, I think that he's pretty pragmatic and maybe what you might call a realistic optimist. [00:16:00] The article makes a compelling case that by most metrics, some of the things Aimee referred to earlier, we are actually making good progress as a human species in tackling some of the world's most difficult problems.
And sure, we haven't met our goals to say the least, um, but we're moving toward them. That's the point. We are moving toward them. Now, when I come across something like this, I am drawn to it like someone wandering thirsty through the desert. I just want to hear something good, please, and let it be real. Like so many of us these days, I am finding it harder to remain hopeful, frankly. There's just so much, so much, and it feels insurmountable at times.
You know, for every [00:17:00] article that I come across like this that says things are getting better, there might be a hundred that's telling me it's getting worse. So, I am saying this for myself as much as for anyone listening. Hope is such a fragile thing. I think of it as the lens through which we see the world. Hope's very survival depends on us and on what we choose to see. Choose to see the good. It is there. It really is. Not everything is lost.
Aimee: Yeah, it is there.
I was a health communications major for one of my master's programs. Uh, and one of the things that I think I learned very clearly, it's kind of this, protocol, I guess you'd call it. If it bleeds, it leads And that drives so much of [00:18:00] what we communicate in journalism and messaging. If it bleeds, it leads, meaning if it's bad, it's going to make the front page. And then the second worst thing is on the second page, the third worst thing. So we get inundated with the blood, the bad stuff, the hard stuff, just because it sort of captures our attention, not because it's true or dominant.
And I think that's important to remember that we get very, um, it's very, there's an angle to what gets communicated to us. And it's true, hope is fragile and at the same time it's abundant. It is beyond all of those leads, all of those messaging that we might see on social media or on the news. We just really have to tune into it.
And then we can switch that journalism approach if it gives. It leads, I can't think of a, can't
even think of, there we go. Oh, if
Henry: ha ha [00:19:00] ha.
Aimee: go. Let's change it. Thank you. That's a good spot to close. I want to share some wisdom from author Barbara Kingsolver.
I love her books. They really get into life, the giving, just as you've inspired right there, Henry. And also this interdependence, how the world, um, how we see the world, how it influences us and our own self image. Here's what she wrote:
"The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope, not admire it from a distance, but live right in it, under its roof.
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