The Superpower You Didnt Know You Still Have

ENWhat if the best solution for the anxiety and stress of modern life would be looking at life like a six-year-old child?

ENWhat if the cure for depression isn't in a pill but in the most unexpected place?

ENI'm Martin.

ENAnd I'm Julia.

ENWelcome to your English Toolbox.

ENToday we are talking about a superpower.

ENIt is a superpower that you were born with.

ENYou used it every day when you were five years old.

ENBut somewhere along the way,

ENyou lost it.

ENYou traded it for efficiency.

ENYou traded it for being a serious adult.

ENAnd today we are going to tell you why getting it back might save your mental health.

ENAnd of course how it will change the way you learn English.

ENThis sounds like a big promise, Julia.

ENIt is.

ENBut I have a story that explains everything.

ENAre you ready?

ENI am always ready for a story.

ENImagine a restaurant.

ENBut this is not a

ENnormal restaurant.

ENIt is a dark restaurant.

ENHave you heard of them?

ENYes, I have.

ENThese are places where you eat in total darkness, right?

ENYou cannot see the food.

ENYou cannot see the waiter.

ENYou cannot even see your own hand.

ENExactly.

ENIt is a sensory experience.

ENNow imagine two couples walking into this restaurant.

ENLet's look at couple A.

ENThey sit down in the dark and immediately they start to struggle.

ENLet me guess.

ENThey are uncomfortable.

ENThey

ENare miserable.

ENThe man says, I can't find my fork.

ENThis is ridiculous.

ENThe woman says, how do I know if the table is clean?

ENI can't see anything.

ENThey spend the entire dinner complaining.

ENThey feel out of control.

ENThey are stressed because the environment is not what they expected.

ENThey are fighting the reality.

ENExactly.

ENNow look at couple B.

ENThey sit at the next table in the exact same darkness.

ENBut their reaction is completely different.

ENThe

ENwoman says, wow, listen to the sound of the voices in the room.

ENWithout the lights, the sound is so clear.

ENThe man says, I can't see the food, but I can smell the spices.

ENIt's like tasting for the first time.

ENThey are laughing when they can't find their water glasses.

ENThey lean in closer to hear each other.

ENThey turn the limitation into a game.

ENI love this example.

ENThe situation is identical.

ENThe darkness is the same.

ENThe food is the same.

ENBut the experience is opposite.

ENCouple A is suffering.

ENCouple B is amazed.

ENAnd that word is the key.

ENAmazed.

ENThis is what we want to talk about today.

ENThe attitude of constant surprise.

ENThe ability to be amazed by everything we find in our life.

ENWe usually think that amazement is something that happens only when we see something huge.

ENLike the Grand Canyon.

ENOr a rocket launch.

ENOr a miracle.

ENBut children don't

ENneed the Grand Canyon.

ENA child can look at an ant carrying a leaf and be amazed for 20 minutes.

ENA child can look at the washing machine spinning and see a whole universe.

ENThat is the super power we lost.

ENWe became used to the world.

ENWe stopped seeing the magic in ordinary things.

ENAnd psychically that is a dangerous place to be.

ENWhy is it dangerous?

ENLet's bring in some science.

ENThere is a psychologist named Dr. Dasher

ENKeltner.

ENHe is a professor at the University of California Berkeley and he has studied the science of awe.

ENIt means a feeling of reverential respect mixed with fear or wonder.

ENExactly.

ENDr. Keltner found something incredible about our brains.

ENHe found that when we feel awe, when we are amazed, our brain changes.

ENSpecifically, it quiets down the default mode network.

ENThat sounds technical.

ENWhat is the default mode network?

ENThink of it as the self-critical voice.

ENIt is

ENthe part of the brain that thinks about me.

ENIt worries about my future.

ENIt regrets my past.

ENIt says, did I do that wrong?

ENOr what do people think of me?

ENAh, I know that voice very well.

ENIt is the voice of anxiety.

ENYes.

ENAnd here is the magic.

ENWhen you are amazed, that voice shuts off.

ENWhen you look at a sunset or when you focus intensely on the taste of a strawberry, you cannot worry about

ENyour bank account at the same time.

ENThis makes sense.

ENYou cannot be in your head and in the moment at the same time.

ENIf I am amazed by the rain hitting the window, I am not thinking about my emails.

ENPrecisely.

ENAmazement forces you into the present moment.

ENAnd the present moment is the only place where peace exists.

ENSo, the couple in the dark restaurant.

ENCouple A was trapped in the default mode network.

ENThey were thinking, this

ENis inefficient for me.

ENI don't like this.

ENAnd couple B was simply observing.

ENThey were outside of themselves.

ENThey were connected to the world.

ENAnd this protects us from depression.

ENDepression is often an obsession with the past.

ENAnxiety is an obsession with the future.

ENAmazement brings you right here, right now.

ENBut, Martin, people might say, my life is boring.

ENI don't have time to go to the mountains or see waterfalls.

ENI have a job.

ENI have

ENdishes to wash.

ENAnd that is the challenge.

ENYou don't need a waterfall.

ENYou need new eyes.

ENYou can wash the dishes and be angry that you are losing time.

ENOr you can feel the warmth of the water on your hands.

ENYou can look at the bubbles and see how the light reflects in them.

ENOkay.

ENThat sounds a bit like being a monk.

ENMaybe.

ENBut it is also practical.

ENIt changes your brain chemistry.

ENIf you can find

ENamazement in a traffic jam, you are invincible.

ENIn a traffic jam?

ENThat is difficult.

ENLook at the other people.

ENRealize that every car contains a whole human life.

ENWith dreams and fears and families.

ENSuddenly you are not stuck in traffic.

ENYou are in the middle of a human story.

ENSo the first step to mental balance is to stop judging the situation as good or bad.

ENAnd just look at it with curiosity.

ENLike a child.

ENYes.

ENAnd

ENthis leads us to the next big feeling.

ENBecause once you start noticing things with amazement, something else happens automatically.

ENYou start feeling grateful.

ENGratitude.

ENYou cannot be grateful for something you don't notice.

ENIf you drink your coffee while looking at your phone, you don't taste it.

ENSo you cannot be grateful for it.

ENBut if you stop and you smell it and you think about the beans growing in Brazil and the person who roasted them and the

ENheat of the cup, then suddenly you feel rich.

ENYou feel rich not because you have more money but because you finally see the value of what you already have.

ENThat is a beautiful definition of gratitude.

ENIt isn't about getting new things.

ENIt is about seeing the old things with new eyes.

ENExactly.

ENAnd psychology tells us that gratitude is the strongest antidote to anxiety.

ENAnxiety screams you don't have enough.

ENYou aren't safe.

ENYou need more.

ENGratitude whispers.

ENLook at what is right here.

ENIt is enough.

ENIt is amazing.

ENSo the chain of reaction is amazement leads to presence and presence leads to gratitude and gratitude leads to peace.

ENYes.

ENIt is a mental immune system.

ENIf you build the habit of being amazed, you are vaccinating yourself against the misery of modern life.

ENOkay, Martin.

ENI am sold on the philosophy.

ENI want to live like that.

ENBut we are an English learning podcast and I

ENknow our listeners are asking, how does this help me speak better English?

ENI am glad you asked, Julia, because this is the secret sauce of our method.

ENThis is the heart of slow English.

ENThink about the two couples at the dark restaurant again.

ENOkay.

ENOne was complaining about the darkness.

ENOne was enjoying the sounds.

ENNow imagine two English students.

ENLet's call them student A and student B.

ENStudent A is the adult mindset.

ENHe looks at English

ENgrammar and he sees an obstacle.

ENHe says, why is the pronunciation so irregular?

ENThis is inefficient.

ENWhy do I have to use the present perfect here?

ENIn my language, we don't do that.

ENExactly.

ENHe is fighting the reality of the language.

ENHe is stressed because English is not logical.

ENHe is rushing to get to fluency so he can stop studying.

ENHe sounds like the man looking for his fork in the dark.

ENHe is.

ENAnd because he

ENis stressed, his brain filters are closed.

ENAnxiety blocks memory.

ENNow look at student B.

ENStudent B has the child mindset.

ENShe looks at the same irregular pronunciation but she says, wow, isn't that funny?

ENEnglish is so weird.

ENShe is amazed by the strangeness.

ENYes.

ENShe reads a new idiom and instead of trying to memorize it desperately, she laughs.

ENShe thinks, what a colorful way to say that.

ENShe enjoys the texture of the words.

ENShe is treating

ENEnglish like a game or like a mystery to solve.

ENAnd do you know what happens biologically?

ENHer brain releases dopamine.

ENShe is relaxed.

ENHer default mode network, that critical voice, is quiet.

ENSo she absorbs the language naturally.

ENShe learns faster because she isn't trying to force it.

ENThis is a huge shift.

ENWe usually think we need to be serious to learn.

ENWe think, I must concentrate.

ENI must work hard.

ENBut children don't work hard to learn

ENtheir first language.

ENThey play.

ENThey are amazed by every new word they discover.

ENThey shout dog 10 times because the word dog tastes good in their mouth.

ENWe need to find that feeling again.

ENWe need to stop fighting English and start enjoying it.

ENAnd this brings us to slow learning.

ENYou cannot be amazed if you are rushing.

ENIf you drive your car at 200 kilometers per hour, you cannot see the flowers on the side of the

ENroad.

ENEverything is a blur.

ENYou are just focusing on the destination.

ENBut if you walk, if you go slowly, you see the flowers, you see the cracks in the pavement, you see the life.

ENIn English, if you rush to finish the chapter, you learn nothing deep.

ENBut if you stay with one paragraph and you look at it with amazement, look at how this verb connects to this noun.

ENListen to the rhythm of this sentence.

ENThen the

ENEnglish becomes part of you.

ENIt stops being a subject you study and it becomes an experience you live.

ENThat is the goal.

ENTo move from studying to experiencing, from anxiety to awe.

ENSo here is our challenge for you this week.

ENWe want you to practice the superpower.

ENPut on your six-year-old glasses.

ENFind one ordinary thing today.

ENIt could be your cup of tea.

ENIt could be the sound of the bus engine.

ENIt could be the way

ENthe light hits your desk.

ENStop.

ENLook at it for 30 seconds.

ENTry to find the miracle in it.

ENDon't analyze it.

ENJust feel it and see if you can feel that little spark of amazement.

ENAnd then try to do the same with your English practice.

ENDon't just do your exercises.

ENLook at the words.

ENBe amazed that these strange sounds can carry meaning across the world.

ENIt changes everything.

ENIt turns a boring task into a moment of

ENjoy.

ENAnd we really want to hear about your experience.

ENThis community is built on sharing these moments.

ENIf you enjoyed this episode, please write a small comment before you go.

ENYour comments show the platforms that our community is real, active, and growing.

ENThis support is crucial for us to continue creating new episodes every week.

ENTell us, what ordinary thing amazed you today?

ENDid you see a color?

ENDid you hear a sound?

ENLet's build a list of

ENwonders together.

ENDo you want to be part of our slow English community?

ENWe need your comments because your voice is more important than ours.

ENYour voice and comments will show us the right path.

ENThank you for listening.

ENI'm Martin.

ENAnd I'm Julia.

ENSee you in the next episode.

ENStay amazed.