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Hey everyone, welcome back to Podcast and Chill. I'm Gwen, your walking encyclopedia.

And I'm Leo.

Dude, seriously, we literally just started.

My bad. My bad. I'm a bit sleepy right now. I had a hard time falling asleep last night.

Oh, what kept you up?

You know, it was one of those nights where your brain just wouldn't shut up.

What was it yapping about?

Every single thing, but more like negative. It felt like I had a rerun of all those embarrassing moments in my life in one sitting.

Oh, yeah. I know what you mean. Been there, done that.

And the weird thing is inside my head it felt like chaos, though my room was completely peaceful.

Well, maybe that's because it's not really about your room, but about what's happening up in your head.

What do you mean?

I mean, usually it's what's going on inside our heads that controls how we feel and act, not what's happening around us.

So, you're saying a peaceful place doesn't matter if my mind is messy.

Or flip that around. If your mind is at peace, you could likely relax even in the middle of a wild Black Friday crowd at Walmart.

That's actually pretty wild. So, in other words, we become what we think about.

That's right. And that's exactly what we're talking about today.

Sweet. I'm pumped. Let's get started.

But before we dig into it, guys, don't forget we'll break down some cool and useful vocab later. We also have this awesome PDF with all the words and practice exercises. You definitely don't want to miss that.

All right, let's jump in.

So, I guess this whole mental chaos thing is actually pretty common, huh? Like, even someone put together like you has to deal with it sometimes.

Oh, absolutely. It's super common. A friend of mine described it perfectly.

What did she say? She said it's like her brain turns into this non-stop Spotify playlist that you just can't turn off.

Honestly, that doesn't sound that bad.

Yeah, except it's the free version with ads.

Oh, then no thanks. That's brutal.

And it gets worse.

What?

It's always playing the absolute worst tracks.

What kinds of songs are we talking about? like it just keeps replaying the sounds of your mistakes and your fears.

Mine would definitely be stuck on you're not good enough. Probably the deluxe extended version.

And I bet for a lot of our listeners, their most played song is your English needs a lot of work.

Tell me about it. I have this friend who's been learning English for years.

You mean Thomas?

Yes. He's always like, "I'm just not a language person."

Really?

Yeah. Especially when she sees her classmates picking it up way faster than her.

The comparison trap gets us every time.

And now he's totally convinced she'll never be fluent.

How awful.

His brain just keeps playing that same depressing story over and over.

That's such a classic pattern. It's like a million thoughts just explode in our heads all at once and we get completely overwhelmed. For me, it's like having 50 browser tabs open in my head at the same time.

Yes. And one of them is always the unread messages tab, making you feel guilty for not replying to people.

Then there's the cringe memories tab, replaying that one stupid thing you said in high school. Don't forget the "Am I good enough?" tab. Constantly whispering that you're not smart enough, not talented enough, not whatever enough.

Why does our brain love holding on to all that crap? It's like a highlight reel of every embarrassing moment I've ever had.

What's even crazier is that playlist keeps running no matter where you are, whether everything around you is total chaos or dead silent.

If this mental chaos were an Olympic sport, I'd definitely win gold.

It's so exhausting. You can be having this amazing day, but then one tiny thing goes wrong and suddenly all those tabs start blasting at once

and there goes my perfect day. But the thing is, while many people think that what happens to them controls how they feel, that's not actually true.

So what does?

It's our thoughts that drive our emotions and our actions. Really, our whole life.

So you're saying it's not what happens to us, but how we think about what happens.

Take Thomas for example. It's not that he's actually bad at it. It's the thoughts he keeps repeating that make him act like he's bad at it.

That makes sense. He hasn't been practicing English much lately. I think that mindset is definitely part of the problem,

right? And then not practicing makes him worse, which just confirms all those negative thoughts he already had.

Yikes. I thought my cooking skills were depressing, but that cycle sounds even worse. Well, I might not be able to help with the cooking, but I do have an idea for breaking that mental loop.

Oh, yeah. Lay it on me.

There's this quote from Marcus Aurelius that I love.

Marcus who? Sorry, my education clearly has some gaps.

Marcus Aurelius. He was a Roman emperor and a philosopher. A pretty badass combo, right?

Okay, new knowledge unlocked. So what did this Roman emperor philosopher guy say?

He said, and I quote, "You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this and you will find strength."

So basically, he's telling us to focus on controlling our minds instead of trying to control everything around us.

Exactly.