The

The Welcome back to the Anxiety Slayer podcast. We're so grateful to you for listening in.

Ananga and I are here today to share some thoughts on how you can create a personal

oasis, a safe space in times of chaos. Hey, Ananga, how you doing? Hey, Shen. Perhaps the beginning

of our conversation can be about how joy and gratitude can make a difference in our lives when things feel so chaotic

and out of control.

Yeah, gratitude, finding joy.

I was reminded of Brené Brown, who uses the word and, and the coexistence of anxiety, sometimes intense fear and joy and gratitude.

I think she writes about that very beautifully, and there's an example.

I can't remember which one of her books, but she describes a family scene where she was kind of struck with fear of loss,

and at the same time felt so incredibly happy and grateful for the moment. And I think sometimes in, you know, traditional

Western society, we think it's either all we're happy or we're not, we're well or we're not,

you know, we fluctuate between the dualities of life.

I was also reading this morning from somebody I like to learn from.

And he said that gratitude is an antidote to depression.

If we can hold gratitude, it really does fend off those lower moods. Where we feel that times are sad or chaotic,

things are happening beyond our control, things that make us worried or heart sore. We have to go

there more consciously, or sometimes even if it's our nature to be grateful, we might kind of get blown off course.

But I think there's something very sweet in returning intentionally to gratitude.

Oh, yeah.

Well, because if you don't, you will get swept away by the surface of all of the media hype, all of the headlines, the sad state of affairs

here, there, and everywhere, news stories that we were never meant to know about before

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