How to Feel More Hopeful

The Science of Happiness

PRX and Greater Good Science Center

Science, Social Sciences

4.5 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 19 June 2025

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How can we build a sense of hope when the future feels uncertain? Poet Tomás Morín tries a writing practice to make him feel more hopeful and motivated to work toward his goals.

Summary: Can writing about your hopes make you feel more optimistic? In this episode, poet Tomás Morin tries a hope-focused writing practice developed by psychologist Charlotte Van-Oyen Witvliet. Backed by research, the practice helps people feel more hopeful, motivated, and grounded in gratitude, even in the face of uncertainty.

How To Do This Practice:

Write about something you deeply hope will happen, but can’t fully control.
Reflect on how important this hope is to you and how motivated you are to pursue it.
Recall a past hope that once felt uncertain but eventually came true.
Write about what you’re grateful for from that experience, including who helped and what you learned.
Connect what you learned then to what you’re hoping for now.
End by naming one small action you can take today toward your current hope.

Scroll down for a transcription of this episode.

Today’s Guests:

TOMÁS MORIN is a poet who won an American Poetry Review Honickman First Book Prize for his collection of poems A Larger Country. He’s currently a professor at Rice University.

Check out Tomás’ work: https://www.tomasqmorin.com/
|Read some of Tomás’ poems: https://tinyurl.com/3v8u6m5h
Read Tomás’ latest book: https://tinyurl.com/aej9cw3a

CHARLOTTE VAN OYEN-WITVLIET is a clinical psychologist who teaches at Hope College in Holland, Michigan.
Learn more about Charlotte’s work: https://tinyurl.com/yc65w4nu

Related The Science of Happiness episodes:

Climate, Hope, & Science Series: https://tinyurl.com/pb27rep
Why Going Offline Might Save Us: https://tinyurl.com/e7rhsakj
How To Show Up For Yourself: https://tinyurl.com/56ktb9xc
How To Feel Better About Yourself: https://tinyurl.com/42fn62a2

Related Happiness Breaks:

A Self-Compassion Meditation For Burnout: https://tinyurl.com/485y3b4y
5 Minutes of Gratitude: https://tinyurl.com/r6pkw2xx
A Humming Technique to Calm Your Nerves: https://tinyurl.com/mr42rzad

Tell us about your experience with this practice. Email us at happinesspod@berkeley.edu or follow on Instagram @HappinessPod.

Help us share The Science of Happiness! Leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts and share this link with someone who might like the show: https://tinyurl.com/2p9h5aap

Transcription: https://tinyurl.com/557waxw7

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's so easy to just, you know, you watch the news or doom scroll, you know, on social
0:07.0	media and the algorithm keeps feeding you all the worst things and it's so easy to feel alone and hopeless.
0:14.0	As a kid when I learned about the hole in the ozone layer. I mean, what a moment it felt like,
0:19.0	oh, suddenly we're in some disaster film and like what's going to happen.
0:22.6	This is the end?
0:23.6	Recently, scientists discovered a weak spot in the ozone layer over Antarctica.
0:27.6	It felt like there's this awful thing that's happened in the sky that I can't see.
0:32.6	And if it doesn't get fixed, then this is going to physically hurt us. It's going to force us to change how we live.
0:42.3	You know, we won't be able to go outside anymore. It'll be too dangerous. That event hijacked my nervous system.
0:50.3	It just felt too big. It felt too big for me to, I think, like, understand mentally, so instead my body carried that fear.
0:59.0	Now when I look back, I realized it was anxiety.
1:03.0	And fast forward, years later, I remember seeing somewhere, oh, hey, we did it.
1:08.0	And just feeling like, oh, wow, as a species, we're actually capable of this.
1:12.6	Human action to save the ozone layer appears to have worked.
1:16.6	The study says it should fully recover within decades.
1:19.6	To have nations come together, have our government pull together,
1:24.6	our politicians come together across the aisle,
1:26.6	and actually come up with the plan and then implement it.
1:30.3	That was really huge for me.
1:34.3	I knew we were capable of collaborative destruction, but I didn't know that we were capable of collaborative repair.
1:52.1	I'm Dacker Keltner.
1:53.6	Welcome to the Science of Happiness.
	...

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