Handling Hopelessness, with Dora

Please note that this week's episode contains discussion about difficult topics like hopelessness that may bring up strong emotions for some listeners. If you feel that hearing this content could potentially impact your mental wellbeing, please skip the third question. (gentle music) Headspace Studios. (gentle music) Hey everybody, it's Robin here with another episode of "Dear Headspace," and I am so excited to be sitting down with Dora, and we are gonna answer your questions about what to do when you're recovering from a major life event. In this unfortunate case, we're talking about a home fire. We also have a question about meditation and attempting to switch from guided to unguided meditation. And lastly, we have a question about what to do when you feel hopeless. And I have to say, these are all important questions. So let's get started. Have you ever wished you had a wise meditation teacher on speed dial? Someone you can call after a long day? Someone you could lean on for their advice? Someone to listen and help you to see things differently? Welcome to "Dear Headspace," a podcast where I sit with a meditation teacher and we answer your questions. Hi, Dora, it is so lovely to see you today. It has been a minute. It has been a minute, but I'm excited to see you too. I love doing this. I know, me too. But you gotta tell everybody where you've been and what you've been up to. I was in India for the past month doing a yoga teacher training, and it was the most incredible experience ever. I imagine doing something so huge like that. So life altering, everybody wants some kind of summary from you, and I can't imagine that's easy to do, but like, what would be the thing you'd wanna say? Like your first instinct about the trip? Yeah, all my previous perceptions about what yoga is were like debunked. Really? (Dora laughs) Yeah. I intentionally went to the source to learn yoga. I was supposed to do it back in 2019. But life happened. And so I was like, okay, maybe this is a redirection or opportunity for me to do it more intentionally. And so when my friend told me about this program, I was like, all right, like this is it. It feels good, looks good. Reviews are great. I'm gonna do it. Oh, I love that. And I just feel like that is the perfect place for us to just sort of transition into our first question. And it is from Julie, so take it away, Julie. Hi, Headspace. I'm Julie, and I'm 17 years old from Norway. 20 months ago, my family and I experienced a house fire. And we were very lucky that no one got hurt. But I still sometimes get triggered by certain things like the smell of smoke or just being on the lot where my old house used to stand. After the fire, we had to tear down...