Welcome to another episode of Lurie Breaks It Down, a podcast where we dig deeply to connect the dots on the issues that shape our world.

I'm Lurie Daniel Favors, author, activist, attorney, and the host of the Lurie Daniel Favors show on Sirius XM's Urban View, Channel 126. If you like what you're about to hear, go ahead and give us five stars and then tell everybody that you know. And if you don't like it, just, child, keep it to yourself and pray our strength. Okay, thank you so much. Also, don't forget to check out my YouTube page, Lurie Daniel Favor's Media, where you should subscribe, like, and share because then you'll get notified when I post videos from my show, which I do just about every single day and when I go live with my YouTube audience. So lots we're going to get to. And, of course, we have a ritual on this show. Before we get to

any of that, whether it's a Friday or any other day ending in why, when we are live on this show,

we have a ritual. Oh, and I guess technically since we're not live right now, whether we're live or

remote or, you know, it's a pre-recorded show to the best of our ability. We try on a regular basis to make

sure that we are carving out time for this ritual, which is a pretty significant one. It's a ritual

that we call the moment of gratitude. And as you may recall, for those of you who are new to the

show, I welcomed you into this space called Black Talklandia at the very beginning of the show.

Now, remember, Black Talk Landia is heavy work, right? That's where we're doing the work

of embodying the best in Black Talk radio. And that, quite frankly, is extraordinarily heavy.

It can be very difficult and it can weigh on the spirit, especially when you add to that,

the fact that we are as human beings, just living life as human beings on the planet and trying to, you know, deal with life, life in.

So this ritual is really important because it allows us to get into the right mood.

And that mood is one of optimism.

It's a mood of joy.

It's a mood of gratitude and appreciation.

Not just because those emotions feel good, which they do, but because those emotions, when we are rooted in them, they help us to prevent being trapped by other emotions that can be debilitating.

So, for example, if you are rooted in gratitude, we have learned from the science and from lived experience that you cannot also be trapped by fear.

And considering the conditions of the world right now,

being freed from the trappings of fear is pretty important. When you are similarly rooted in joy

and appreciation, it's really hard to get stuck in fear, loneliness, and depression. So considering

everything that we're navigating, I think it's a pretty darn good thing that we have this ritual.

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