Add in the Good Stuff

And why doing it right now is essential to our collective resilience.

The absence of negatives isn’t the same
as the presence of the good stuff.

I’ve been in therapy, on and off, for over 35 years.
13 practitioners and everything from traditional talk therapy to meditation, visualizations and ayurvedic tea supplements to balance my doshas. One lady tried to tell me a few years ago that having complex PTSD was akin to addiction and therefore treated me as she would a drug addict (that one set me on a confusing path for a while).

It wasn’t until I discovered wellbeing research in 2017 that it occurred to me:
in all of my “healing” I’d only ever been asked to focus on making sense of the worst of what I’d been through. At no point did anyone try to teach me to be well.

Wellness is now one of the most lucrative buzzwords in all the land (the industry is forecast to gross $9 trillion globally by 2028). But for all of our investment in mental health and “wellness”, America had the lowest reported life satisfaction on record in 2025 and the data out so far this year isn’t looking much better.

After decades of being fed everything we’re doing wrong - whether it’s the fitness industry telling us we’re working out wrong, the diet industry demonizing another macronutrient, or the latest blockbuster therapy book telling us about the nature of our trauma - maybe what we’re doing wrong is focusing on what’s wrong.

Maybe it’s time to focus on what we can get right.

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Look, I get it…

There’s a lot wrong right now. I haven’t had my head under a rock nor do I think “good vibes only” will save us. But hear me out:

Human beings have a natural, evolutionary tendency to focus on negative things (called negativity bias). When there’s enough negative being fed to us all the time we can fall into a state of passivity (called learned helplessness).

One way to counter negativity bias is to intentionally build up positive experiences. That way you don’t end up convinced that everything is bad - a pessimistic mindset that’s more prone to helplessness. I think we can all agree the last thing we want to be right now is passive.

Ergo, if you’re looking at the world right now thinking “wow, this is pretty messed up!” one way to inoculate yourself to helplessness would be to intentionally cultivate the good stuff.

Ok, but how?

The wellness industry would have you believe that the key is designer workout pants, lip injections, the right studio fitness classes, and supplements tailored to your hormonal state.

Short answer from an expert: that ain’t it.

Yes, feeling good about yourself will help.
Yes, exercise will help. So will good nutrition and sleep.

But feeling good about yourself doesn’t come from a recipe you learned on TikTok. Positive experiences are emotions ~ movement, sleep, and nutrition will increase your physical ability to feel those emotions; but then you’ve got to have a seed. A trigger. An activity or action that sparks those emotions in you.

In my professional experience this requires 3 things:

1. The space and time for the good stuff to take place

2. Knowing yourself (or having a loved one who knows you) well enough to know what you’ll respond to

3. Actually doing it

This all sounds remarkably simple, doesn’t it?
Many adults, especially those with significant stress or trauma, either don’t know what it means to feel something good day-to-day, don’t believe they’re entitled/allowed to and they experience shame and guilt at the prospect of it, don’t think it should have to be intentionally cultivated - - or, if they get passed all that, don’t make the time and space to actually do it.

“During the darkest days of the AIDS crisis we buried our friends in the morning, we protested in the afternoon, and we danced all night, and it was the dance that kept us in the fight because it was the dance we were fighting for.” – Dan Savage

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Need support finding your own positive core?
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