Resilience and How to Practice Joy

Are you afraid of joy? 

I know…bizarre-o question.  

Yet, after over a decade working as a therapist, I’ve had a curious finding. Humans are, indeed, scared of joy.  Beyond anger, sadness, grief, shame, you name it, we are more resistant to feel prolonged joy than other emotions.

Why is this?  

I call it “the other shoe syndrome.”  If we bask in moments of joy, small though they may be, eventually, the other shoe will drop, leaving us disappointed, or perhaps ill-prepared.  We’re so afraid of the let down that we settle for scarcity and self-protect.  

In other words, joy is too risky.  Something terrible might happen on the other side so we opt out altogether and dumb down desire.  That way, if we run tactics on worst-case scenarios, we have nothing to lose.  

After all, we have what’s called a negativity bias, or gravitation towards negative stimuli around us.  Fear has kept us alive as a species through the ages, yet we don’t really need it to stay alive in the same way our primal ancestors did.  This negativity bias has a strong evolutionary pull on our awareness, making joy more of a learned practice.   

Brene Brown says it best, “When we lose our tolerance for vulnerability, joy becomes foreboding.  As a result, we dress-rehearse tragedy and beat it (vulnerability) to the punch.” 

Not so fast, Cowboy.  As humans, we simply can’t opt-out of vulnerability. 

We must risk something along the way.  Expansion requires it. So does love. In both, there are no guarantees.

It’s worth noting that the goal here is not the absence of struggle.  You may have noticed lately, struggle is an integral part of life. The goal is resilience, or the ability to recover quickly from life’s challenges.

As we learn to practice joy, this opening up to hope amidst life’s challenges, guess what grows?  Yep…resilience.  

How do we practice joy?  I’m convinced it’s a three-fold process.  

When Joy flashes her tooth-y grin in your direction, don’t look the other way—get curious.  Flirt with her, even if she’s there for just a minute. 

Then what? 

Pivot to gratitude.  Research shows the most joyful people in the world are also the most grateful.  This blows far beyond circumstance. It’s a result of practice. When we pivot to gratitude instead of scarcity, we build up new accessory muscles we didn’t know existed.  This, in turn, becomes habit over time.  

In that practice of gratitude for this joyful moment—breathe it in—stay with it.  Brain science tells us it takes three deep breaths or eleven seconds to form a new neuropathway in your brain.  By basking in these joyful moments, you are literally rewiring your brain to make you a more wholehearted, receptive person. 

These simple sightings of joy are oxygen for the soul.  I think we can all agree, we need it — now more than ever.  

Love & Gratitude,

Katie

P.S. Join me on Instagram Live this Thursday at 2 pm CT to talk Enneagram Subtypes with Author, Psychotherapist, and Expert Beatrice Chestnut.  Follow me on Instagram.