In this brief classroom monologue, a teacher delivers a daily "Moment of Yes" to students attending via Zoom while she is physically present in a hybrid classroom. She introduces Wayne Dyer’s orange‑squeeze metaphor, asking what "juice" comes out when a person is squeezed: compassion, kindness, love, or negative emotions like victimhood, frustration, and impatience. She emphasizes that while all emotions are natural, constantly holding onto negative feelings is chemically toxic, triggering fight‑or‑flight hormones that harm both body and mind. The speaker argues that chronic anger or frustration should be rare, as repeated exposure pumps harmful chemicals into the system and then spills them onto others. She calls for conscious awareness of one’s emotional "juice" and the development of practices that replenish positive emotions, urging listeners to cultivate "good juice" for personal well‑being and healthier interactions. The talk concludes with a motivational send‑off.
Chapters
Good morning, everyone. Here is your Moment of Yes for Wednesday the 24th. I'm on break here in class and just remembered I haven't done a Moment of Yes yet. And so it's really easy to do because I put the kids into— kids— students into breakout rooms for the next 10 minutes. And here I am in this classroom. Take a look. And these are my students today. Hi. Super attentive group, aren't they? In fact, they're all on Zoom. So I am in person, so I have to drive 45 minutes to sit in a classroom with no students while they join me from Zoom. But by, um, in order to get state funding— thank you, DeSantis— the teacher needs to physically be in class. So you're welcome. So they're on break, which is perfect timing to to do a moment of yes. And so we were just talking about this idea. It's one of my favorite ideas of all time. I've shared it over the years. Wayne Dyer shared the idea many, many years ago that if you squeeze an orange, what comes out? Orange juice. So, because that's what's inside an orange. You don't squeeze an orange and think grape juice is gonna come out. You don't squeeze an orange and look for apple juice. You squeeze an orange and what comes out? Orange juice. Orange juice. That's what's inside the orange. So the question becomes, when you get squeezed, what comes out? What's inside of you? Is it compassion juice, kindness juice, love juice, or is it victim juice, frustration juice, impatience juice? Whatever we're carrying around inside of us is what's going to come out when we get squeezed. Not if we get squeezed, but when we get squeezed. And there's nothing wrong with feeling any of those emotions. Those are natural human emotions. The thing we don't want to do Is to carry them inside of us. And I notice myself when I do that, I, you know, how I responded to a situation wasn't about the situation that happened. It triggered inside of me the juice that's there, and I get squeezed, and that's what comes out. So when we notice ourselves with these negative emotions, we'll call them that. A, it's okay to have them, but B, we don't want to keep them because they're toxic. Not figuratively toxic. They are. Physically, chemically toxic chemicals. They are there in our system for fight or flight testosterone reasons. But every time we feel them, it pumps them into our body. We don't need to be pumping those into our body regularly. They should be for the rare life-saving situation, which should be rare. But if we're constantly getting angered, frustrated, we're pumping those toxic chemicals into our body. We carry them around. Which, A, doesn't physically feel good or emotionally feel good. And then when we get squeezed, we spew them on everyone else, and it's not their fault either. So it's a long way to say we need to be conscious. We need to be aware of what we are carrying around and make sure that we're not carrying around any of that negative juice. So when you get squeezed, what comes out of you? And then what are the practices that you're developing to make sure that you are replenishing yourself with the good juice. It's all about the good juice, people. That's your Moment of Yes for today, everybody. Have an awesome day.
