Welcome to the Very Well Mind podcast. We've interviewed over 100 authors, experts, entrepreneurs, athletes, musicians, and others to help you learn strategies to care for your mental health.

This episode is hosted by psychotherapist and bestselling author Amy Morin. Now let's get into the episode.

Okay. You're listening to the Friday fix.

Every Friday, I share a quick mental strength exercise that will help fix the thoughts,

emotions, and actions that drain you of the mental strength you need to be your best.

Now, let's dive in today's episode. Today I'm talking about how to emerge from the pandemic mentally stronger. Just keep in mind that coming out of the pandemic stronger doesn't mean that

you need to be filled with positivity about what just happened. The truth is a lot of people died.

A lot of people were separated from

their loved ones and relationships fell apart. And a lot of people are going to struggle financially

for a long time. Ignoring those hardships and telling yourself that this year was great because

you finally got to clean the closets or saying you greatly enjoyed all that family time when you

didn't actually enjoy it isn't healthy.

Hyper-focusing on the positive to the extent that you ignore the negative is bad for your mental

health. You have to allow yourself to experience a whole wide range of emotions in life.

Feeling unpleasant ones sometimes, like being sad or disappointed, is actually going to help you

appreciate the pleasant emotions a lot more, like when you're happy or you're excited. If you numb

yourself to unpleasant feelings, you also numb yourself from the pleasant ones. It's impossible

to just let the happy emotions flow freely while blocking out the ones that don't feel so good.

In fact, pretending that everything is great all the time is what we call toxic positivity.

If you want to learn more about why that's a bad idea, check out episode number three.

I talked to best-selling author Nora McEnnerney.

She's the host of a great podcast. It's called Terrible. Thanks for asking. And she knows a

...