What if you could tap into your inherent resilience at any time? Prentis Hemphill guides a meditation to turn good memories into a state of resilience.

How To Do This Practice:

1. Get Comfortable in Your Body: Find a position, seated, standing, or lying down, that feels right. Move, shake, or sound out anything that helps you arrive in your body.
2. Conjure a Resilient Memory: Call to mind a moment, place, or experience that makes you feel strong, creative, or connected, something that reminds you of your resilience.
3. Let It Fill You Up: Notice where that memory lives in your body, and let it expand into your arms, legs, face, and breath until it energizes your whole being.
4. Turn It Up: Amplify the sensation by 20%, letting it spill through your muscles and cells. Notice shifts in breath, posture, and energy.
5. Turn It Down: Gently reduce the sensation, bit by bit, and observe what changes. What stories re-emerge, how your body responds, and how you make that shift.
6. Carry It With You: Return to the present moment with the option to bring that resilience with you at the volume and intensity you need, knowing it’s always available.

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Today’s Happiness Break Guide:

PRENTIS HEMPHILL is the founder of the Embodiment Institute, and a writer and therapist who prioritizes the body in their approach to healing.

Learn More About the Embodiment Institute: https://www.theembodimentinstitute.org/about

Check out Prentis’ website: https://prentishemphill.com

Follow Prentis on Twitter: https://twitter.com/prentishemphill

Follow Prentis on Instagram: https://tinyurl.com/4d99f4xs

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Make Uncertainty Part of the Process: https://tinyurl.com/234u5ds7

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A Self-Compassion Meditation For Burnout: https://tinyurl.com/485y3b4y

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Follow us on Instagram: @ScienceOfHappinessPod

We’d love to hear about your experience with this practice! Share your thoughts at happinesspod@berkeley.edu or use the hashtag #happinesspod.

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

Help us share Happiness Break! Leave a 5-star review and share this link: https://tinyurl.com/2p9h5aap

Transcription: https://tinyurl.com/46383mhx

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:

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

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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

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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

Does your to-do list feel endless? Try this short, guided practice to help you reflect, reconnect, and release the pressure to do it all perfectly.

How To Do This Practice:

1. Find a Comfortable Posture: Sit or stand tall with a sense of dignity, grounded, yet relaxed.
2. Take Three Cleansing Breaths: Inhale twice through the nose, then exhale slowly through the mouth. Repeat this three times to settle into the moment.
3. Scan Your Body from Head to Toe: Gently bring your attention to each part of your body, noticing sensations and letting go of any tension as you move downward.
4. Visualize Your To-Do List as Floating Bubbles: Imagine each task as a bubble above you. Observe them without judgment, simply noticing their presence.
5. Ask Reflective Questions: Is it the number of tasks that’s overwhelming, or is it fear of forgetting, failing, or letting someone down? What’s truly fueling your stress?
6. Recenter with Gratitude and Self-Compassion: Acknowledge that being needed is a form of purpose. Remind yourself that even if not everything gets done, you are still enough and already whole.

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Explore more talks, workshops, and resources atggsc.berkeley.edu/speaking.

Today’s Happiness Break Guide:

KIA AFCARI is the director of Greater Good Workplaces at GGSC. Kia grounds his work in the science of well-being, prosociality, and contemplative practices and uses creative methods like “instant dance parties” and Boal-informed theater techniques to achieve results.

Watch Kia’s TED Talk on reshaping diversity, equity, and inclusion here: https://tinyurl.com/483tdjp5

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Follow us on Instagram: @ScienceOfHappinessPod

We’d love to hear about your experience with this practice! Share your thoughts at happinesspod@berkeley.edu or use the hashtag #happinesspod.

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

Help us share Happiness Break! Leave a 5-star review and share this link: https://tinyurl.com/2p9h5aap

Transcription: https://tinyurl.com/5dvk3d7m