Happiness Break: Make Uncertainty Part of the Process

The Science of Happiness

PRX and Greater Good Science Center

Science, Social Sciences

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 29 May 2025

⏱️ 4 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Through poetic reflection, Yrsa Daley-Ward helps us embrace the in-between moments, reminding us that the unknown can be the very terrain where real change begins.

Settle into Stillness: Find a quiet space, get comfortable, and take a few slow breaths to arrive in the moment.
Acknowledge the Unknown: Gently notice and name any uncertainty, confusion, or emotional fog you’re feeling without needing to fix it.
Welcome the Silence: Allow the silence and stillness to be here, trusting it holds meaning even if it feels uncomfortable.
Reflect with Gentle Words: Repeat silently or write: “To love yourself through the darkness is to plant gardens at night.”
Feel Your Connection: Remember that many others are also sitting with uncertainty, and you are not alone in this experience.
Close with Compassion: Offer yourself kindness through touch or words and affirm that this pause is part of your growth.

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Today’s Happiness Break Guide:

YRSA DALEY-WARD is an award-winning poet and author. Her debut novel, The Catch, comes out June 3rd.
Learn more about Yrsa here: https://yrsadaleyward.squarespace.com/

Pre-order her book here: https://tinyurl.com/yanw6bb5

Related Happiness Break episodes:

Using Art As Medicine Series: https://tinyurl.com/k3mneupx

Making Space For You: https://tinyurl.com/yk6nfnfv

How To Awaken Your Creative Energy: https://tinyurl.com/4fknd8ev

Related Science of Happiness episodes:

Our Brains on Poetry: https://tinyurl.com/y9r9dyzd

How Art Heals Us: https://tinyurl.com/yc77fkzu

Are You Following Your Inner Compass: https://tinyurl.com/y2bh8vvj

Follow us on Instagram: @ScienceOfHappinessPod

We’d love to hear about your experience with this practice! Share your thoughts at [email protected] or use the hashtag #happinesspod.

Find us on Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/2p9h5aap

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Transcription: https://tinyurl.com/234u5ds7

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi everyone, I'm Dacker Keltner, and this is Happiness Break, where we share short science-back practices to help you connect with yourself, others, and the world around you.
0:12.0	Today, poet and author Yerza Daily Ward offers us a reflection, a kind of meditative poem, on how stillness, uncertainty, and silence
0:24.1	can be fertile ground for growth.
0:26.5	Poetry, research shows, can help us process our emotions, engage our memory and self-awareness,
0:33.1	and even ease stress.
0:35.5	Yursa's words invite us into that quiet space. When you're ready,
0:40.6	here's Yerza. Hello, my name is Yerza Daily Ward and I am a writer and poet and I really like to write about matters of the heart
0:57.2	and speak to what might be going on in the nervous system
1:02.3	and write questions or meditations on our deeper selves
1:07.6	and the spaces that we find ourselves in.
1:11.6	So I'm just going to leave you with a couple of meditations and they don't have names,
1:17.6	but this speaks to some of the things that I've been feeling.
1:25.6	This moment is not the whole story.
1:29.3	To break is not to fail.
1:32.3	To fall is not to lose.
1:35.3	There are worlds that only open in the dark.
1:40.3	To love yourself through the darkness is to plant gardens at night.
1:46.0	No witnesses, only stars.
1:54.0	I'd like to offer you another meditation.
1:58.0	Not everything worth finding is wrapped in clarity and sunshine.
2:04.6	Some things arrive through the fog, through tension, through that strange in between.
2:11.6	Some things you only see when everything else falls away.
	...

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