Finding Light Amongst the Darkness
- emilytweiner
- 7 days ago
- 3 min read
2025 has been a challenging year for even the most optimistic among us, and anyone with an ounce of empathy has been affected by the increasing weight of the world. The recent wave of tragedies, from the brutal killings at Bondi Beach on the other side of the world to the murder of an MIT professor just a mile from my home, has made that weight impossible to ignore.
I tend to be someone who finds the good in people, but this year has tested my ability to stay trusting and solutions-focused. The daily headlines have understandably made me question our collective humanity and become increasingly concerned about the darkness that has been overshadowing our society.
As I write this on the Winter Solstice – the darkest day of the year – it strikes me that each of our holiday celebrations focus on the power of light. The Christmas Tree, perhaps the most recognizable symbol of the season, was adapted from a Pagan tradition of bringing nature indoors and decorating as a way to deal with the dreariness of winter and uplift spirits during the darkest of days. Hanukkah and Kwanzaa both involve lighting candles as reminders of the struggle, hope, and power of people to overcome adversity. And communities everywhere ring in the New Year by setting off fireworks – literally lighting up the midnight sky.
Across cultures and traditions, light shows up again and again as reminders that darkness is not the end of the story.
No matter what you celebrate – Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Bodhi Day, Solstice, New Year’s, and beyond – you likely engage in some activity involving light that teaches a lesson about resilience and hope. These celebrations are also designed to foster connection between people and cultivate a sense of inner calm. Everything about the holidays is supposed to be about slowing down and connecting our hearts, minds, and spirits.
And yet, in this time of literal and figurative darkness, disturbing headlines can trigger overwhelming emotional stress, making it more challenging than ever to truly feel connected and find our inner peace. As I feel that tension between my quest for calm and being flooded with distressing news, I started thinking of a recent NPR story about the power of positive social media content to alleviate stress and reclaim hope.
Yes, you read that right – the power of positive social media content.
Researchers at UC Santa Barbara wondered if watching different types of social media videos could shift people’s mindsets and affect stress levels. The study, published by the American Psychological Association, included 1,000 Americans aged 18 to 86 who were divided into four groups. One watched videos of people overcoming obstacles and succeeding against all odds for 3-5 minutes a day, another watched comedy clips of the same length, the third group practiced short daily meditations, and the control group did nothing at all.
From NPR’s article and interview with Robin Nabi, one of the study’s authors:
“Comedy didn't move the needle much. People who watched comedy did not differ from the control group, but both the inspiring videos and the meditation significantly increased hope. ‘We were actually quite surprised at how similar the effects of the inspiring videos were to the group that meditated,’ Nabi says. ‘Both groups felt more hope…. And that hope predicted lower stress over the next ten days.’”
This quantitative data confirms what many of us intuitively know – changing our input of messages changes our perspective. But the really interesting part here is that watching stories of underdogs overcoming adversity is the equivalent of meditating in terms of our mental health and wellbeing.
We may not be able to avoid negative headlines, and we may struggle to convince our brain that there are positive things happening around us. But with enough desire and discipline, we can choose to seek out stories that feature people beating the odds. And, most importantly, we can use those stories of people finding their inner light to help us find our own.
As we close out 2025 and get ready to welcome 2026, I hope you’ll find opportunities to reset your mental health and stress levels, and can connect to healthier, more grounding ways of moving through the world. I wish you a bright start to 2026 and may you find opportunities to push past the darkness and tap into your own light.
