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What if the best solution for the anxiety andstress of modern life would be looking at life
like a six-year-old child? What if the cure fordepression isn't in a pill but in the most
unexpected place? I'm Martin. And I'm Julia.Welcome to Your English Toolbox.
Today we are talking about a superpower. It is asuperpower that you were born with.
You used it every day when you were five yearsold. But somewhere along the way, you lost it.
You traded it for efficiency. You traded it forbeing a serious adult.
And today, we are going to tell you why getting itback might save your mental health.
And of course, how it will change the way youlearn English.
This sounds like a big promise, Julia. It is. ButI have a story that explains everything.
Are you ready? I am always ready for a story.
Imagine a restaurant. But this is not a normalrestaurant.
It is a dark restaurant. Have you heard of them?
Yes, I have. These are places where you eat intotal darkness, right?
You cannot see the food. You cannot see thewaiter. You cannot even see your own hand.
Exactly. It is a sensory experience.
Now, imagine two couples walking into thisrestaurant. Let's look at couple A.
They sit down in the dark. And immediately, theystart to struggle.
Let me guess. They are uncomfortable.
They are miserable. The man says, I can't find myfork. This is ridiculous.
The woman says, how do I know if the table isclean? I can't see anything.
They spend the entire dinner complaining. Theyfeel out of control.
They are stressed because the environment is notwhat they expected.
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They are fighting the reality.
Exactly. Now, look at couple B.
They sit at the next table in the exact samedarkness.
But their reaction is completely different.
The woman says, wow, listen to the sound of thevoices in the room.
Without the lights, the sound is so clear.
The man says, I can't see the food, but I cansmell the spices.
It's like tasting for the first time.
They are laughing when they can't find their waterglasses.
They lean in closer to hear each other. They turnthe limitation into a game.
I love this example. The situation is identical.
The darkness is the same. The food is the same.
But the experience is opposite.
Couple A is suffering. Couple B is amazed.
And that word is the key.
Amazed.
This is what we want to talk about today.
The attitude of constant surprise.
The ability to be amazed by everything we find inour life.
We usually think that amazement is something thathappens
only when we see something huge.
Like the Grand Canyon. Or a rocket launch. Or amiracle.
But children don't need the Grand Canyon.
A child can look at an ant carrying a leaf and beamazed for 20 minutes.
A child can look at the washing machine spinningand see a whole universe.
That is the superpower we lost.
We became used to the world.
We stopped seeing the magic in ordinary things.
And psychically, that is a dangerous place to be.
Why is it dangerous?
Let's bring in some science.
There is a psychologist named Dr. Dasher Keltner.
He is a professor at the University of California,Berkeley.
And he has studied the science of awe.
A W-E. Awe.
It means a feeling of reverential respect mixedwith fear or wonder.
Exactly. Dr. Keltner found something incredibleabout our brains.
He found that when we feel awe, when we areamazed, our brain changes.
Specifically, it quiets down the default modenetwork.
That sounds technical.
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What is the default mode network?
Think of it as the self-critical voice.
It is the part of the brain that thinks about me.
It worries about my future.
It regrets my past.
It says, did I do that wrong?
Or what do people think of me?
I know that voice very well.
It is the voice of anxiety.
Yes. And here is the magic.
When you are amazed, that voice shuts off.
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Some providers promise no fees on overseastransfers,
but extra costs often hide in bloated exchangerates.
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When you look at a sunset or when you focusintensely on the taste of a strawberry,
you cannot worry about your bank account at thesame time.
This makes sense.
You cannot be in your head and in the moment atthe same time.
If I am amazed by the rain hitting the window, Iam not thinking about my emails.
Precisely.
Amazement forces you into the present moment.
And the present moment is the only place wherepeace exists.
So, the couple in the dark restaurant.
Couple A was trapped in the default mode network.
They were thinking, this is inefficient for me.
I don't like this.
And couple B was simply observing.
They were outside of themselves.
They were connected to the world.
And this protects us from depression.
Depression is often an obsession with the past.
Anxiety is an obsession with the future.
Amazement brings you right here, right now.
But Martin, people might say, my life is boring.
I don't have time to go to the mountains or seewaterfalls.
I have a job.
I have dishes to wash.
And that is the challenge.
You don't need a waterfall.
You need new eyes.
You can wash the dishes and be angry that you arelosing time.
Or you can feel the warmth of the water on yourhands.
You can look at the bubbles and see how the lightreflects in them.
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Okay, that sounds a bit like being a monk.
Maybe.
But it is also practical.
It changes your brain chemistry.
If you can find amazement in a traffic jam, youare invincible.
In a traffic jam?
That is difficult.
Look at the other people.
Realize that every car contains a whole humanlife.
With dreams and fears and families.
Suddenly you are not stuck in traffic.
You are in the middle of a human story.
So the first step to mental balance is to stopjudging the situation as good or bad.
And just look at it with curiosity.
Like a child.
Yes.
And this leads us to the next big feeling.
Because once you start noticing things withamazement, something else happens automatically.
You start feeling grateful.
Gratitude.
You cannot be grateful for something you don'tnotice.
If you drink your coffee while looking at yourphone, you don't taste it.
So you cannot be grateful for it.
But if you stop.
And you smell it.
And you think about the beans growing in Brazil.
And the person who roasted them.
And the heat of the cup.
Then, suddenly, you feel rich.
You feel rich not because you have more money.
But because you finally see the value of what youalready have.
That is a beautiful definition of gratitude.
It isn't about getting new things.
It is about seeing the old things with new eyes.
Exactly.
And psychology tells us that gratitude is thestrongest antidote to anxiety.
Anxiety screams, you don't have enough.
You aren't safe.
You need more.
Gratitude whispers.
Look at what is right here.
It is enough.
It is amazing.
So, the chain of reaction is...
Amazement leads to presence.
And presence leads to gratitude.
And gratitude leads to peace.
Yes, it is a mental immune system.
If you build the habit of being amazed,
you are vaccinating yourself against the misery ofmodern life.
Okay, Martin.
I am sold on the philosophy.
I want to live like that.
But we are an English learning podcast.
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And I know our listeners are asking,
how does this help me speak better English?
I am glad you asked, Julia.
Because this is the secret sauce of our method.
This is the heart of slow English.
Think about the two couples in the dark restaurantagain.
Okay.
One was complaining about the darkness.
One was enjoying the sounds.
Now, imagine two English students.
Let's call them student A and student B.
Student A is the adult mindset.
He looks at English grammar and he sees anobstacle.
He says,
why is the pronunciation so irregular?
This is inefficient.
Why do I have to use the present perfect here?
In my language, we don't do that.
Exactly.
He is fighting the reality of the language.
He is stressed because English is not logical.
He is rushing to get to fluency so he can stopstudying.
He sounds like the man looking for his fork in thedark.
He is.
And because he is stressed, his brain filters areclosed.
Anxiety blocks memory.
Now, look at student B.
Student B has the child mindset.
She looks at the same irregular pronunciation,
but she says, wow, isn't that funny?
English is so weird.
She is amazed by the strangeness.
Yes.
She reads a new idiom and instead of trying tomemorize it desperately, she laughs.
She thinks, what a colorful way to say that.
She enjoys the texture of the words.
She is treating English like a game or like amystery to solve.
And do you know what happens biologically?
Her brain releases dopamine.
She is relaxed.
Her default mode network, that critical voice, isquiet.
So she absorbs the language naturally.
She learns faster because she isn't trying toforce it.
This is a huge shift.
We usually think we need to be serious to learn.
We think, I must concentrate.
I must work hard.
But children don't work hard to learn their firstlanguage.
They play.
They are amazed by every new word they discover.
They shout dog ten times because the word dogtastes good in their mouth.
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We need to find that feeling again.
We need to stop fighting English and startenjoying it.
And this brings us to slow learning.
You cannot be amazed if you are rushing.
If you drive your car at 200 kilometers per hour,
you cannot see the flowers on the side of theroad.
Everything is a blur.
You are just focusing on the destination.
But if you walk, if you go slowly,
you see the flowers, you see the cracks in thepavement, you see the life.
In English, if you rush to finish the chapter, youlearn nothing deep.
But if you stay with one paragraph, and you lookat it with amazement.
Look at how this verb connects to this noun.
Listen to the rhythm of this sentence.
And then the English becomes part of you.
It stops being a subject you study, and it becomesan experience you live.
That is the goal.
To move from studying to experiencing.
From anxiety to awe.
So here is our challenge for you this week.
We want you to practice the superpower.
Put on your six-year-old glasses.
Find one ordinary thing today.
It could be your cup of tea.
It could be the sound of the bus engine.
It could be the way the light hits your desk.
Stop.
Look at it for 30 seconds.
Try to find the miracle in it.
Don't analyze it.
Just feel it.
And see if you can feel that little spark ofamazement.
And then try to do the same with your Englishpractice.
Don't just do your exercises.
Look at the words.
Be amazed that these strange sounds can carrymeaning across the world.
It changes everything.
It turns a boring task into a moment of joy.
And we really want to hear about your experience.
This community is built on sharing these moments.
If you enjoyed this episode, please write a smallcomment before you go.
Your comments show the platforms that ourcommunity is real, active, and growing.
This support is crucial for us to continuecreating new episodes every week.
Tell us, what ordinary thing amazed you today?
Did you see a color?
Did you hear a sound?
Let's build a list of wonders together.
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Do you want to be part of our Slow Englishcommunity?
We need your comments because your voice is moreimportant than ours.
Your voice and comments will show us the rightpath.
Thank you for listening.
I'm Martin.
And I'm Julia.
See you in the next episode.
Stay amazed.