406. How to romanticise your 20s (even when they suck)

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Psychology of your 20s

Episode 406: How to Romanticise your 20s (even when they suck)
Host: Jemma Sbeg
Date: April 13, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode tackles a widely requested topic: how to “romanticize your 20s” — especially during tough periods. Host Jemma Sbeg explores the psychology and science behind the popular practice of “romanticizing” everyday life, offering practical tools and evidence-based techniques to deepen the meaning and richness of this often tumultuous decade. Sbeg combines historical context, neuroscience, psychology research, and personal anecdotes to present five actionable romanticizing strategies, alongside a candid discussion of when it’s okay not to romanticize at all.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What Does "Romanticizing Life" Actually Mean?

[03:18 - 07:30]

• Romanticizing is often mistaken for “sugar-coating” or toxic positivity, but Sbeg clarifies this isn’t about pretending pain is pleasant or forcing ourselves to see only silver linings.
  • “Romanticizing our 20s... is choosing to experience your life as something you are actually experiencing, not just something that is happening to you, or against you, or with you as a victim.” [04:37]
• The concept is rooted in the Romantic movement of the 1800s, which emphasized feeling deeply — even if those feelings are painful or messy — as a path toward truth and self-realization.

2. The Psychological Mechanisms: Why Does It Work?

[07:30 - 15:51]

• Cognitive Reappraisal:
  Reframing situations to alter our emotional response, even if the facts remain unchanged. This process is backed by a 2013 neuroimaging meta-analysis demonstrating changes in brain activity when people successfully reframe negative experiences.
  • “You can change your emotional response by changing how you think about a situation, even if the situation stays the same because your thoughts are half of the reality you’re experiencing.” [09:00]
• Prediction Machine Model:
  The brain uses past experiences and expectations to interpret new events. Focusing deliberately on positive or meaningful interpretations shapes what we notice in life — reinforcing the narrative we choose.
• Attention as a Mental Resource:
  The “biased competition” model: Our attention acts as a filter, amplifying what aligns with our goals and mindset.
  • “What you focus on expands... what you consistently attend to becomes more salient, more encoded, more retrievable, and more likely to form the basis of your sense of self and your twenties.” [14:40]

3. Role of Narrative: Life as a Story

[19:26 - 24:00]

• Sbeg introduces “narrative psychology” — how we make sense of our experiences by organizing them into a coherent story.
  • “There is the objective story ... and then there is the narrative that you tell yourself about that story, which is what makes it meaningful, what makes those objective experiences sentimental.” [20:03]
• A 2014 study in the Journal of Personality: The more people structure their life events with coherence and optimism, the greater their well-being.
  • “If you are able to take moments of failure as lessons, if you are able to think that your story was building to something greater ... that made these people happier.” [22:24]

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Five Practical Tips for Romanticizing Your 20s

1. Soundtrack Your Life

[24:00 - 27:00]

• Make playlists for different life chapters, routines, or seasons. Music is a tool for emotional regulation and can help “bookmark” moments in time.
  • “Every good story, every good movie needs a good soundtrack... Make yourself a movie soundtrack to all the different moments.” [24:12]
• Later, listening back can unlock nostalgia, perspective, and deeper appreciation for even difficult times.

2. Make Your Alone Time Romantic

[27:01 - 30:40]

• Reframe solitude as valuable and intentional, not a sign of failure.
  • “Make your alone time romantic and make it really just make it really, really special... spending time with yourself.” [27:10]
• Reference to “crafting solitude” — deliberately planning and savoring alone time is psychologically protective.

3. Create Personal Rituals

[30:40 - 34:50]

• Rituals for both big and small events (new jobs, rejections, breakups, birthdays) help anchor experiences and create coherence in your personal narrative.
  • “Rituals... help us mark points in time. They help us, like, maybe even mentally close certain chapters or open certain chapters.” [32:30]
• Concrete examples: buying yourself a gift with each new job, specific outfits or perfumes for first dates, breakup rituals, or marking birthdays with meaningful walks.

4. Collect Trinkets & Memories

[39:06 - 41:50]

• Preserve souvenirs, notes, tickets, or small objects as physical cues for memories. A 2021 study showed how objects help prevent the feeling that time has “evaporated” and nurture a sense of meaningfulness.
  • “Collecting trinkets... act as cues for our memories. It's one way to kind of prevent that evaporation of time that a lot of US experience.” [39:23]
• Suggestions: junk boxes, scrapbooks, even just saving a receipt from a fun night.

5. Document Your Story (Vlog for Yourself)

[41:51 - 44:30]

• Film or record yourself during emotional moments, not to share, but for your own reflection. These recordings serve as future reminders of growth and proof that pain is temporary.
  • “When I broke up with my first proper boyfriend ... I started doing was vlogging myself, crying... Only recently did I find those videos again... I feel so happy I now have the privilege of getting to sit back with hindsight.” [42:10]

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When NOT to Romanticize

[44:30 - 47:30]

• Sometimes, the most “romantic” or loving thing is allowing yourself to feel bad and not forcing a positive narrative.
  • “Sometimes the most romantic, loving thing you can do for yourself is just let yourself fall apart, to just let yourself feel like crap about a situation.” [44:37]
• Emotional acceptance, not bypassing, predicts better psychological outcomes.
• “You cannot act against the physics of life. It’s not a way to stop bad things from happening. It’s just a way of stopping bad things from becoming the only narrative you tell yourself about your life.” [46:56]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “[Romanticizing is] choosing to experience your life as something you are actually experiencing, not just something that is happening to you, or against you, or with you as a victim.” (Jemma Sbeg, 04:37)
• “Your thoughts are half of the reality you’re experiencing… by controlling those thoughts, you can give yourself a better outlook and a better outcome.” (09:00)
• “What you focus on expands... what you consistently attend to becomes more salient, more encoded, more retrievable, and more likely to form the basis of your sense of self.” (14:40)
• “If you are able to take moments of failure as lessons… that made these people happier.” (22:24)
• “Every good story needs a good soundtrack… make yourself a movie soundtrack to like all the different moments.” (24:12)
• “Make your alone time romantic… spending time with yourself.” (27:10)
• “Rituals… help us mark points in time… mentally close certain chapters or open certain chapters.” (32:30)
• “Collecting trinkets... act as cues for our memories. It's one way to kind of prevent that evaporation of time that a lot of US experience.” (39:23)
• “Sometimes the most romantic, loving thing you can do for yourself is just let yourself fall apart, to just let yourself feel like crap...” (44:37)
• “It’s not a way to stop bad things from happening. It’s just a way of stopping bad things from becoming the only narrative you tell yourself about your life.” (46:56)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 03:18 — Defining romanticizing; its roots and misconceptions
• 07:30 — Cognitive reappraisal and why reframing works
• 14:40 — The science of attention and perception shaping reality
• 19:26 — The power of narrative psychology in well-being
• 24:00 — Practical tip 1: Soundtrack your life
• 27:01 — Practical tip 2: Making alone time special
• 30:40 — Practical tip 3: Rituals for meaning and closure
• 39:06 — Practical tip 4: Collecting physical memory cues
• 41:51 — Practical tip 5: Documenting your story for yourself
• 44:30 — When not to romanticize: the value of sitting with pain

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Final Thoughts

Sbeg concludes with a gentle reminder that romanticizing your 20s isn’t about denying pain or pretending everything is “meant to be.” It’s about consciously shaping your narrative, savoring ordinary moments, and keeping faith—especially when things are tough. Sometimes, simply allowing yourself to be “messy and sad” is just as important.

Listener call-to-action:
“How are you planning to romanticize your 20s? Is there something that you do that I didn’t mention that you think is important?”

Closing note:
“Until next time, be safe, be kind, be gentle to yourself. We’re going to talk very, very soon.” [47:20]

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Transcript

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Hello everybody, welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. It is so great to have you here back for another episode of the show. Today I am finally doing it. I am doing a much requested topic or episode which is my guide to romanticizing our 20s even when they suck. I think we've all seen videos or posts online about the importance of romanticizing your life. Of like romanticizing your 9 to 5, romanticizing your commute, your morning routine, whatever it is. But why does this actually work? What does the psychology and the science say about these practices? And the biggest question of them all, Is there any evidence, is there any evidence that buying yourself the flowers, pretending you're the main character, using the good cutlery, the good candle work? The answer I'm going to give it to you straight away is yes, there is so much evidence, honestly, so much evidence. I could make this a two parter that romanticizing your life does things to your mind, does things to your brain, does things to your body that improve your quality of life. So today we are going to talk about that what romanticizing your 20s should actually look like. Of course, the neuroscience and the psychology behind why and how this practice will quite literally change your reality and change the timeline you are on. But also my five personal favorite, you know, romanticizing techniques and tips that you probably are not doing or you may not have even heard of. So without further ado, let's get into the episode. When people talk about romanticizing, it often gets confused with sugar coating or even toxic positivity. Like kind of like you're supposed to spin everything into a lesson and you are immediately meant to treat your pain like it is this gift, it's this amazing thing. Everything happens for a reason, everything is how it should be, everything is redirection. We have to be careful with this because it can turn into what we call in psychology, emotional bypassing, basically, not actually letting yourself Feel the full spectrum of emotions and therefore emotionally depriving yourself of a big part of your human experience. Like, we don't want to be doing that. Instead, romanticizing our 20s, as I see it personally, is choosing to experience your life as something you are actually experiencing, not just something that is happening to you or against you or with you as a victim. This is a mindset that honestly really has its roots in the 1800s with a movement called the Romantic movement to give you a history lesson. Like, the Romantics were a group of people who really believed in the purpose and the importance of feeling experiences, getting the full complexity of it all. Feeling deeply as a way to truth and enlightenment, even if it was more painful and messy than rationality. It is definitely a shift from this idea that your life is just a series of difficulties that you need to fix to acknowledging that your life is an unfolding story. Despite whether this chapter is hard or not, ultimately there is a purpose. And ultimately feeling is part of that purpose. Just notice for a second what I'm not saying. I'm not saying the hard chapter is fun. I'm not saying you have to be grateful for it. I'm saying it can be a chapter without being the whole story. And this is such an important emotional skill to develop during this decade. Because guess what? Bad things are going to happen to us in these years and the next. It's just without a doubt, it's the promise of life. Breakups, job rejections, loneliness. There is immediate pain there that has to be respected. And then there is the second layer of meaning that we get to control. And by doing so, that will actually shift your lived reality. Romanticizing your 20s is any form of exercise practice mindset shift that allows you to see your experiences as meaningful, even if they are actually terrible. Before we get into some of the specific practices for doing this that I have for you guys, how does this actually work? Like, I feel like I've been teasing this this whole episode. But like, psychologically, clinically, scientifically, whatever. What is the perspective? What is the mechanism that makes this effective? The biggest reason romanticizing your life or your 20s works and makes your life in your 20s better is because of the power of cognitive reappraisal. So the theory behind cognitive reappraisal, which is one of the most famous theories in psychology, basically says you can change your emotional response by changing how you think about a situation, even if the situation stays the same because your thoughts are half of the reality you're experiencing. By controlling those thoughts, you can give yourself a better Outlook and a better outcome, cognitive reappraisal. It's basically just a reality regulation strategy that is so well documented in the research, because essentially we know this two people could be experiencing the exact same thing. But the very fact that their past or their intentions make them think about it differently will change the experience of that moment for them. And how you experience that single moment, the moment that you are in, is really all that reality is ever based on. For example, a 2013 meta analysis of neuroimaging studies. I don't even know how many they did. Hundreds. It found that when people successfully reframed negative stimuli, so basically were able to say, you know, this isn't all bad. This is what this could actually mean for me. I'm excited rather than anxious. I'm excited to see this unfold. The effect of this, of not just accepting negativity as it was, was visible in the brain. Often there was increased activity in the networks involved in cognitive control, meaning making, and also reduced activity in brain regions associated with heightened emotional reactivity, such as the amygdala, which is very famous for that. When we employ this reframing strategy, again, we're not changing the physical event. The physical event still sucks. What is actually happening to us is that we are just tapping into a psychological mechanism that our brain already has. Like, our brain already has this ability to think differently about a situation. Sometimes it just forgets to use that because we are so emotionally overwhelmed by all of this stuff landing at our doorstep at once that we just don't use it and we just find it easier just to accept things as they are. Models in cognitive neuroscience will often describe the brain as a prediction machine. It uses past experiences to generate expectations about what is going to happen and what will happen next, basically. And then it updates those predictions based on incoming sensory data or like incoming environmental stimuli. Part of that data it's using are your deliberate thoughts and how you choose to interpret something that is part of the data set. So this means that what you expect therefore shapes what you notice when an event, life happens. It means that that perception will be different. I feel like I'm going on a lot about this. Why does this matter for your 20s? Well, when you are experiencing a time full of ambiguous situations, the brain leans hardest on what it can predict and, and what it can expect to overcome that uncertainty. So if your internal model believes you're behind, if your internal model keeps telling you, like, nothing works out for me, I'm always going to fail, it's easy to take that as a Fact if you never question it. And it's easy to apply that same narrative to entirely neutral situations. You know, the quiet weekend becomes evidence that you lack friends. The endless job hunt becomes evidence that you're just not smart enough. That isn't always true. People are busy. The job market is tough right now. Sometimes you have to take yourself out of that situation and view it differently and view it objectively, whether that is through a romantic lens or something else entirely. So romanticizing though, it's basically it's choosing that deliberate pathway. It's saying, I'm going to reprogram how I am seeing this and give my brain a broader, kinder, more realistic hypothesis for why things are happening to me. Like, this is a hard part of the story and I'm going to get over it. This is my origin story. This is what's going to make me more resilient in the future. This is just part of life's ups and downs. There are other reasons that these things are happening to me that may not just immediately be the reason that I understand, which is that nothing good happens to me. Life sucks. This is terrible. I'm not going to be able to get through it. That shift again, that can change what your brain sees as evidence. It also really comes down to the power of attention. Right? I feel like we talk about attention so much on this podcast because it is your most lucrative tool, your most lucrative resource when it comes to your mental well being. It is our way. Attention is our way of basically allocating our mental resources. Your brain is processing so much information, more than you could ever consciously experience. If you listen to our conscious versus unconscious mind episode, you will know this very well. There are sounds you don't notice, facial expressions you don't register, body sensations you tune out thoughts that flicker by too fast to catch. So the brain has to be selective and it has to develop the systems to be selective. Attention is that selection system. It decides what gets priority processing, what gets amplified and what gets kind of pushed into the background or like basically just ignored. We can understand this through what we call. Well, I guess it's like the idea, the idea of biased competition. It's this model that was proposed by two American psychologists, or I guess neuroscientists way back in the day, I think in like the 1990s, which is not way back in the day, but a couple decades ago. This model basically argues that stimuli compete for neural representation by basically brain space. And what attention does is, is turn our biases towards whatever is currently relevant to our current mindset and our way of seeing the world. Basically, our attention is guided by our goals, guided by our self knowled, guided by our expectations that we get to set deliberately. So if you start to notice good. If you start to notice that everything goes right for me, if you start to believe that everything goes right for you or whatever it is like your brain focuses on that more basically like A big part of romanticizing your 20s is saying let's let me recognize the ordinary, let me recognize the good, let me recognize what I'm grateful for. Things that signify a life of abundance, things that signify a plan that signify things are getting better. If I focus on that, this fine tunes my attentional system to basically search for that more meaning. It becomes a larger, more meaningful part of my reality. Meaning that my behavior and my reality continues to match my expectations because of how I choose to react in response. When people say like what you focus on expands, this is the more scientific way of understanding that what you consistently attend to becomes more salient, more encoded, more retrievable, and more likely to form the basis of your sense of self and more likely to form the basis of your sense of your twenties. Basically, there's one more psychological reason that romanticizing our twenties works beyond attention beyond these this resource allocation.

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let me quickly return to that one final thing I said I kind of mentioned before, which is the role of the narrative. The role of having a story for your twenties and believing that there is this underlying current of things working out or things taking you in the right direction. I think this is my most talked about matter on the podcast. I'm sorry if you are a frequent listener because we are returning to it yet again. It is just so essential to literally every single thing you choose to do in this 10 year period of your life. Like Narrative psychology. If I could. If I could have every 20 something, no one time it would be the idea of narrative psychology. It's the idea that there is an objective Story of what's happening in your life. That objective story may be, you know, I don't have as many friends as I want. I don't like my job. My job is not fulfilling. I don't have the money I need to do the things I want. And then there is the narrative that you tell yourself about that story, which is that, you know, it's what makes it meaningful, what makes those objective experiences meaningful and sentimental. Like, again, that story of, yeah, everything. This is actually important. This, this suffering is important. I am getting closer to what I want. I am learning important skills. That's why I'm going through this. This is the story about the story. In the early 2000s, researchers based in Germany wrote this fantastic, this huge, fantastic paper, talking about this and talking about the idea of life story coherence. And it basically means that you are able to organize events in a way that makes sense over time, especially through casual coherence, basically how your experiences are shaping you. And thematic coherence, like recurring themes that you carry with you. That coherence develops over your 20s. And actually a 2014 study published in the Journal of Personality looked at the autobiographical narratives of personally significant events from all these people, like 103 students, I think. And what they did was they looked at the story people were telling themselves about their lives, and they coded these stories based on whether they were coherent, based on whether they contained content about their identity, based on whether they were inherently optimistic. And what the researchers found was that participants who constructed a more coherent narrative of events like this thing had to happen to lead into this thing, and this thing had to happen to lead into this thing, and failure was redirection. And this all makes sense in the flow of my life, they had improved psychological well being. If you are able to take moments of failure as lessons, if you are able to think that your story was building to something greater, if you are able to see that everything in life is connected, even the hard parts. Like, even the hard parts are still fascinating and still worthwhile in some way because they capture a part of the human condition, because they are necessary stepping stones that will make you happier, that made these people happier. This is why it is so important to reflect or create a story for your life, to explain your experiences, even the ones that suck. That is so protective. So with that in mind, let's jump into some of my actual tips for romanticizing your life, actual tips for connecting to a story about your life. Number one, every good story, every good movie needs a good soundtrack. So if you want to romanticize your 20s, make playlists for every life chapter and moment. Firstly, music is one of the most widely and most historically used emotional regulation tools across culture. Across cultures, I should say, across age groups. Whether that's for comfort, destruction, for, I don't know, processing, anger, it provides catharsis. And I think music also provides a bit of beauty to hard emotions because it allows you to feel it all so deeply, which, again, is part of the blessing of, of being alive, whether we want to. Whether we want to acknowledge that or not. Secondly, a playlist has the potential to do something really quite amazing when you think about it. It creates a container for where you are able to fully feel your emotions and then return to that later. It contains a feeling based on our associations with those songs because of our psychological attachment to music. The memories create that music last and are able to be revisited and thought about. When you're heartbroken, I think when you're moving, when you're homesick, whatever, your feelings can feel very endless, very shapeless. So a playlist gives you emotional boundaries. It helps you move through your emotions. And it means that in 10 years time, 15 years time, maybe even less two years time, you'll be able to listen back to that music, feel the feeling you felt then, and appreciate it differently. Appreciate it as kind of like as. As part of the story so that you gain that coherence, you know, make sure that you continue and that you try to use music to categorize and appreciate your life. Like, if there's a song that makes you feel really ethereal and beautiful, a song that makes you feel really nostalgic, a song that makes you feel heartbroken. Use those songs to bookmark moments in your life, in your experience. Think of it. Think of, like, how impactful, like, a film soundtrack is. It can literally change how you interpret a scene. And it makes you associate certain songs with certain moments. Do that with your life. I want you to make yourself a movie soundtrack to like all the different moments in, you know, the near past future as a way to romanticize them and feel them even more deeply and then to be able to return to them when you're feeling differently to understand that those emotions pass. Like playlist for the first week of 2026 winter, for the dinner party with your friends, for your first breakup, for processing rejection. Have those playlists. Make these playlists as, I don't know, little companions to the moments in your life so that you can feel it deeply. Tip number two, make. Make your alone time romantic and make it really just make it really, really special. Make it incredibly special to you to spend time with yourself. I honestly blame film and TV and social media for this insidious idea that being alone means you're automatically lonely. Especially when we constantly see these people, these images of others with, like, their big friendship groups and like, their perfect relationships and like, their interesting Saturday night. Like, they're at the bar, then they're at the restaurant and they're like, at a show and everybody's having a great time. We want that. But actually, a lot of us in our 20s are alone. More than we ever expected to be and more than other people's. People realize we are not always physically alone. Sometimes it's more. It's more like a feeling like you have people around you, but no one really knows what's going on inside you. I think this causes a huge amount of disappointment in us, you know, as if being single or staying in on a Saturday night or not having a big friend group means you're doing this wrong. And we don't always realize, like, solitude is important and psychologically protective. Of course, like, community support networks add years to your life. They're so important. I'm not saying, like, spend all your time alone, but I think making your alone time romantic and special is so important if you want to feel happy. There's a really interesting paper from the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin that explores solitude as a really important aspect of self regulation. Basically being able to bring yourself back into yourself. That's the best way I can put it. The research has found that solitude actually helps reduce the intensity of negative emotions when it is something that we deliberately choose to practice. The key here is actively choosing rather than feeling like we are passively being thrown into an alone state we don't want to be in. A further study from researchers at the University of Reading called this process of choosing and deliberately cultivating your solitude as crafting solitude. And they talk about the importance of being intentional and making your alone time meaningful and full. Like consciously thinking of a concert or a play or a game you really want to go to and then deciding, I'm going to do that by myself, instead of waiting to be disappointed and feel like I don't have a choice in being alone. Taking yourself out for a cute date, having no plans on a Sunday. So choosing to make it really special for yourself by cooking your favorite meal, cooking like a beautiful, beautiful breakfast, or going for a long hike by yourself, getting your really, like, getting your room really, really cozy, getting your skincare lined up for the night. Like, those small shifts of, like, I have a choice here. I have agency. I love doing this changes the emotional charge around solitude to make it something you're excited about and you can really gain psychological insight from. I also think for those of us who want kids, like, want to get married, want families, there will be a time in your life when you will look back at these solitary moments with envy and with, like, a deep desire to have one more night in your own bed, one more night alone. One more day where you didn't have to follow an itinerary or tell people what to do. One more day where you had, like, no plan. Here is that chance, you know, do it for your future self. Do it for the future you. Part of that is, again, really appreciating every chapter you're in for what you may miss one day. Really appreciating, you know, yeah, I'm lonely, and that sucks, but one day I'm gonna miss being lonely. On, yeah, I'm heartbroken and whatever, but, like, one day I'm gonna be in love and miss this feeling. In the same vein, I think one of the easiest ways to romanticize your 20s is just to create any kind of ritual. You have rituals around being alone, but rituals for when you get your first paycheck and a new job, rituals for getting ghosted, rituals for every job rejection, rituals for every single first date. These are essential. Rituals sound very spiritual, like prayer, like something like that. But there's a lot of research actually showing that having sacred, sentimental practices for key life events or even really minor events, like, helps people cope with uncertainty by creating. Creating something you can control that you find cleansing, that you find calming or romantic, and you can keep returning to because, again, it's something that you control. There's one specific study from 2014 from researchers at Harvard that actually found how rituals can be particularly healing for people going through really hard things, like, specifically people who are grieving. That's why visiting grave sites is so important. That's why lighting candles, continuing to celebrate the birthdays of those who have passed can be so powerful because it continues to keep a part of them alive and keep a certainty and a sense of control over things that feel uncontrollable. It allows us to feel, again, like, yeah, control, but also, like, there is some magic, there's some peace, there's stability to moments that are really hard. Everything around you could fall apart, and you could still light that incense at the end of the night. You could still make sure that you walked outside for 20 minutes every day. I also think rituals in our 20s make the ordinary feel important and significant, which we sometimes lose by being in such a rush to get places and like, tick things off a list and be successful and blah, blah, blah. And they help us mark points in time. They help us, like, maybe even mentally close certain chapters or open certain chapters. So we're like, cool, I'm here. I'm in this moment. I'm not in that moment anymore. Let me give you some examples so that you can kind of see what I'm saying here. The biggest one I think of is, like, I have a ritual. When I start a new job. I always use a small part of my paycheck to buy my myself something really nice that I know will last. Like a gift to myself. Like a nice pair of earrings, a handbag. I think I did that one once. Something that I know I'm gonna have for years. That signifies this new chapter. This literally started, like, when I was. How old was I when I got my first job? 14, nine months? Like 15. And I got my first paycheck. It was $200, which is actually quite a lot of money. But I think I'd worked like a lot of shifts. And I bought myself a pair of ripped denim jeans. No shorts from 1 teaspoon. I don't know if you guys remember that brand. Those shorts did not last. They were so ripped it was almost inappropriate. And. But the practice is, is still there. I've done that for every job, every contract since. I actually didn't do anything for my Netflix deal, which I still feel like I need to do. So I'm breaking my own ritual. It's just been very busy. But yeah, I have one item from every past job I've started. Another ritual is having a specific first date outfit or a first date perfume. And on the other end of the spectrum, obviously, like different life experience, but having a breakup ritual. After you break up, go get a bad haircut, rearrange your bedroom, take everything they gave you, box it all up, burn it, bury it, store it, that sort of thing as a cleansing thing to be like, cool. That chapter is done, I'm ready to psychologically move forward. I physically close the door. Another ritual, something I actually started doing last year, was that I. Well, this year I started to walk the number of kilometers as the same, like the age I was turning. I took that age and did that number of kilometers as a walk. That is the most complicated way of describing this, but basically, turn 26. Walk 26km. Turn 29. Walk 29. Kilometers start at 9am Dawdle along, invite some friends and it kind of signifies a new year. Like I'm doing this hard thing and I'm seeing new things and I'm doing something that marks that this is what I did on this birthday instead of doing nothing. I think rituals around birthdays and aging are amazing to symbolize like the privilege of getting older and just again make your birthday feel special so that time feels marked by these moments. Same for the start of a new year, same for the start of a new season. New cities, new life, like that sort of thing. It marks things in time. It says that everything in life, every experience is still important and during transitional times. It also stops us from keeping things like open ended that can kind of, I don't know, kind of cast a shadow over us. Okay, we're gonna take one final short break with this episode before I dive into my final two tips for romanticizing our twenties and when we maybe shouldn't romanticize hard things and we should just let ourselves feel a little bit crap.

[Podcast Advertiser/Host]

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[Podcast Advertiser/Host]

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[Gemma Speck]

Focusing on fitness and health can be

[Podcast Advertiser/Host]

really overwhelming, but having 30 grams of protein immediately in the morning with Premier Protein can really get you moving and enjoying life. Premier Protein powers you to say yes to more, whether it's crushing a big presentation at work, building an epic fort with your kids, or hitting the hiking trail with friends. Find your favorite [e-mail] that's P R E M I E R protein.com or at Amazon, Walmart and other major retailers. The future won't wait and neither should you. That's why American Public University offers Master's programs designed for momentum, affordable, high quality and flexible so you can keep moving forward with career relevant programs in business, healthcare, education, it and so much more. You can gain skills you can use right away and the confidence to power your next move. American Public University made for what's next? Learn more at apu Apus Edu Dating in our twenties is full of some fairly large questions. Am I supposed to know what I want? Is it okay to want something completely different? How can I find somebody that I trust? Honestly, nothing sparks introspection like navigating relationships. Field is a dating app built for people who are curious and craving deeper connections. People who want to understand themselves just as much as they want to connect with somebody else. To support that, Field created Reflections, a free self discovery tool that helps you explore your desires, boundaries and relationship style. It gives you the language to express what you actually want, which is such a game changer. Field has such an intentional design, no swipe culture, the option to take your time browsing, room to actually write about yourself, and even a hidden bio only reveal to people you connect with. Plus your Reflections insights are completely confidential. Field is independent and ad free. On top of that, try Reflections now by visiting Field co Reflections that's F E E L D co Reflections or Download Field on the App Store or Google Play.

[Gemma Speck]

I did this episode on Whimsy like a month or two ago now and it kind of blew up. You guys loved it. It like strangely went viral on Instagram which side note, the comments are honestly quite funny. I had no idea whimsy could be so controversial. Like people were up in arms. Like people were angry in those comments. But that's besides the point. Something I spoke about in that episode. If you haven't listened to it, it's amazing. Please go listen to it which. Not to toot my own horn, but it's a great episode. Something I spoke about is the importance of collecting and representing your memories through trinkets, small souvenirs through junk during your 20s. We are constantly shedding the skin of the person we used to be and shedding the life of the people we used to be. And sometimes we look back on a year and we wonder, like, where the heck did all the time go? I have nothing to remember this time by. And we struggle to actually think and appreciate what we've done by collecting trinkets, by collecting postcards, notes, whatever it is, these act as cues for our memories. It's one way to kind of prevent that evaporation of time that a lot of US experience. 2021 study in Australia found that possessions like souvenirs, like photographs, really any object that is meaningfully attached to a time or moment can actually preserve that experience for us and make the moment feel more vibrant, feel more important in hindsight. And of course, feel more romantic with a capital R. Feel more deep. Think about when you were a child. I know I used to collect shells from the beach when I was a kid, which apparently you're not meant to do anymore. So I'm very sorry. But I was a kid back then. Nobody knew anything. I used to collect Beanie Babies. I used to, I don't know, collect little figurines. And I still have so many of them. And it physically is very grounding. And it physically feels like I'm. I'm carrying moments of my life with me. I'm carrying memories with me that maybe don't have a physical representation, but I'm like, in my mind, but I'm making that physical representation for myself. I think some ways to do this is like junk journaling, but try doing a junk box this year. Cinema tickets, receipts from a date, a note from somebody, a concert wristband, a postcard, a menu, a chocolate wrapper. Like, it doesn't have to be neat. You're not. Nobody's gonna put this in a museum. Maybe they will. I don't think they will. It's a time capsule for yourself. Or do, like, one scrapbook page per month. Just one. One photo, one sentence. That's it. Something like, march was hard. I did xyz. Here was a photo that I took on my iPhone. But, you know, I spent some really nice time in nature, and now I have that. And I remember that. And I can come back to that. That. On this note, my final tip. Half of romanticizing your 20s is providing ways again, for you to really experience hindsight and for you to really reflect on the past and how far you've come and how meaningful past experiences were to the story that you are creating. So with that in mind, I think the biggest thing you can do for your twenties and romanticizing them is to make vlogs for yourself and yourself only. Let me explain this. When I. When I broke up with, like, my first proper boyfriend when I was at university, I remember feeling, like, so deeply sad and so unhappy. And so what I started doing was vlogging myself, crying. And I know that sounds ridiculous, but I would talk to myself on the camera and be like, I just am having such a hard time. I missed this about him. I missed that about him. And I would keep doing that until I felt like I didn't need to do it anymore. Anymore. And only recently did I find those videos again. I found like 20 of them and I was like, wow, I feel so happy that I documented that. Like, I feel so happy I now have the privilege of getting to sit back with hindsight and be like, we really did get better and everything really turned out the way it was meant to be and we didn't want to end up with him anyways. That is such a privilege. I genuinely feel so lucky that I had that opportunity. And again, it's this hindsight. It's this part of you that only gets to find experiences like, romantic in the future. And if you don't give yourself the opportunity to fully, like, resubmerge in those moments, obviously you can do it in other ways. But, like, sometimes you miss that. You miss how heartbreak, rejection, pain, terrible things, job, losing your job, going broke, like, you forget that it's all going to be okay and that it's all taking you somewhere else. And so starting that practice now of genuinely filming yourself when you feel the need to talk, when you feel like this is a moment or a memory that you are going to want to return to, is a fantastic way to romanticize what you're going through. It's a fantastic way to just. Yeah, I feel like I'm. I've said it enough times. It's a fantastic way to create the story and to have parts of the story that you can reflect back on and then project forward with to see that things are going to get better in the future. Now to drill one final point home before we conclude this episode. Contrary to all the nice sentimental tips I've given so far to, like, vlog yourself, crying, keep junk in a box, whatever, sometimes the most Romantic, loving thing you can do for yourself is just let yourself fall apart, to just let yourself feel like crap about a situation. Our 20s are a hard decade. This is hard. You're a baby adult. You are in your infancy of adulthood. And as you mature, there is so much to learn. And part of that learning is through pain, which really sucks. But I think we all learn that the older we get. Practice emotional acceptance. Basically allow negative emotions to pass through you rather than fighting them. Lean back into them. This has been found to actually predict better psychological outcomes. Fewer depressive symptoms, less anxiety over time, compared to constantly trying to put a positive spin on. On absolutely everything. I know that sounds contradictory, but you are allowed to be messy and you're allowed to be sad, and you're allowed to feel lost and not necessarily know that you're going to feel better, but just hope, like, you're allowed to feel sorry for yourself. Sometimes I feel like we need to say that it's actually a good thing. You don't need to fix it. You don't need to rush through it. Just name the emotion accurately. Care for your body in the most basic sense. Movement, food, sleep, water. And when you're ready, you can maybe look for the silver lining. You can maybe add the narrative back in if you want to do that. Sometimes, honestly, the hard feelings are where you feel most alive because it, like, it hurts so much, it almost feels good. Do you know what I mean? Do you know what I mean by that? Like, the, like the pain almost feels satisfying and gratifying because it reminds you that you're alive and it reminds you that you are here. And as bad as that is, and as much you're like, this is just ripping me to shreds, there is always a parallel happy experience that's going to balance things out. Well, I. I at least believe that. I really do believe in the balance of the universe. When you experience bad, good, good will return. So to summarize, romanticizing your 20s isn't a trick to make bad things always feel good and magical all the time. That is impossible. You cannot act against the physics of life. It's not a way to stop bad things from happening. It's just a way of stopping bad things from becoming the only narrative you tell yourself about your life. We know this works because psychologically, we have evidence for methods like cognitive reappraisal. We have evidence for attention bias theory. We have evidence that our beliefs about a situation do allow us to better control the outcome. And it matters to us. I think this whole process matters. To us because in a time as turbulent and ever changing as our 20s, having that stable, coherent story of like this is all linked. There is an invisible string that runs through this all, stops us from discarding or just wanting to push through hard things and lets us just feel them and just be like, cool, I'm here. I'm in the belly of life. If there's if, if it's not going to go well, at least I'm going to feel it as deeply as I can. So I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you have made it this far and you are listening on Spotify, leave leave a little comment down below. How are you planning to romanticize your 20s? Is there something that you do that I didn't mention that you think is important? As always, huge thank you to our researcher Libby Colbert for her contributions and her help on this episode. She is truly amazing. Know the drill by now, but until next time, be safe, be kind, be gentle to yourself. We're going to talk very, very soon.

[Podcast Advertiser/Host]

The best kind of Internet is the kind you actually don't even notice because it works so efficiently and so fast. No buffering, no cutting out, no going to start the next episode of your favorite TV show and it not loading when you've had a very long day. Especially for somebody who works from home. Broadband Internet is something I rely on every single day and reliability matters. Good Internet makes all the difference. For more information, go to SmartMove US.

[Garnier Representative]

Happy Earth Month. Garnier is proudly partnering with the National park foundation, the official non profit partner of the National Park Service. Garnier's support of the National Park Foundation Service Corps program is enabling young adults and veterans to help care for and enhance the national parks that we all love. Want to lend a hand? Explore Garnier's partnership with the National park foundation and learn how you can help support our national parks@garnier USA.com NPF A

[Podcast Advertiser/Host]

big priority for me in 2026 is to make healthier, better choices so I can take care of myself and just

[Gemma Speck]

have more energy for my everyday life. Life.

[Podcast Advertiser/Host]

That is of course easier said than done when life is so chaotic all of the time. But that is where premier protein shakes come in. They have 30 grams of protein, no added sugar, and tons of delicious flavors. From cake batter to peaches and cream caramel, they are a healthy choice you'll actually want to make because they never feel boring.

[Gemma Speck]

Focusing on fitness and health can be

[Podcast Advertiser/Host]

really overwhelming, but having 30 grams of protein immediately in the morning with Premier Protein can really get you moving and enjoying life Premier Protein powers you to say yes to more. Whether it's crushing a big presentation at work, building an epic fort with your kids, or hitting the hiking trail with friends, Find your favorite [e-mail] that's P R E M I-E-R protein.com or at Amazon, Walmart and other major retailers. Careless the future won't wait and neither should you. That's why American Public University offers Master's programs designed for momentum, affordable, high quality and flexible so you can keep moving forward with career relevant programs in business, healthcare, education, it and so much more. You can gain skills you can use right away and the confidence to power your next move. American Public University made for what's next? Learn more at apu Apus. Edu Dating in our twenties is full of some fairly large questions. Am I supposed to know what I want? Is it okay to want something completely different? How can I find somebody that I trust? Honestly, nothing sparks introspection like navigating relationships. Field is a dating app built for people who are curious and craving deeper connections. People who want to understand themselves just as much as they want to connect with somebody else. To support that, Field created Reflections, a free self discovery tool that helps you explore your desires, boundaries and relationship style. It gives you the language to express what you actually want, which is such a game changer. Field has such an intentional design, no swipe culture, the option to take your time browsing, room to actually write about yourself, and even a hidden bio only reveal to people you connect with. Plus your Reflections Insights are completely confidential. Field is independent and ad free. On top of that, try Reflections now by visiting Feel co Reflections that's F E E L D co Reflections or Download Fields on the App Store or Google Play.

[Gemma Speck]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Podcast Advertiser/Host]

Guaranteed Human.