Last month, BBC Radio host Mike Parr invited me to take part in a show about gratitude and positivity. After reading my article published in Stylist Magazine (Ditch the gratitude app – Why positive thinking is out-dated), they wanted my alternative view.

You can hear the interview on the player below

… But first, here’s some context so it makes more sense when you listen.

At the point when I joined the conversation, the radio host had been discussing the benefits of using gratitude tools. He first interviewed Carla White, creator of the Gratitude Journal app and then invited a psychologist to share her opinions.

Carla’s app prescribes that you should ‘write down 5 things you’re grateful for each day’ and that it will ‘change your life forever’.  The idea is that by doing this daily ritual, you will ‘re-wire your brain’ and be conditioned to think more positively which means you’ll feel better, happier or more content. But there are some major flaws with this concept.

Being happy is not about conditioning ourselves to think in a particular way. Feeling grateful isn’t something you have to work at.  It’s something we naturally experience when our minds are free and unburdened. So all we really need, is to understand what gets in the way of a free, unburdened mind. And the one thing that gets in the way of feeling peace, contentment or happiness is the mistaken belief that our feelings can be coming from somewhere other than our own thinking  – for example from other people, phone apps or the weather
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Happy apps and techniques also promote the idea that feeling positive is the ultimate goal. But feeling positive or happy in any given moment doesn’t mean we have clarity and perspective.  We can be happy and yet at the same time be deluded.   So, the key is to understand where our experience is coming from so that we can experience life with perspective and enjoy unconditional peace of mind.

To find out more, listen to the clip below and if you haven’t already, you can read my Stylist article here.

And of course, please post your comments, questions and feedback on the blog!