What If Nothing Goes Wrong?

EPISODE 33- What if the thing stealing your joy isn't what's happening...it's what you're afraid might happen?

This week, we're talking about overthinking, catastrophizing, and learning to embrace the peace that's already in front of us. Because sometimes, nothing is wrong -and that's something worth celebrating. 

Let a good day be a good day. 

Transcript

Welcome And A Funny Confession

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You've made it to the Choose Joy Podcast. Here we make a conscious effort to choose joy daily. We allow ourselves to heal and grow into the path designed for us. Join me to unpack, affirm, and choose joy.

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Hello and welcome back to the Choose Joy Podcast. I'm your host, Chelsea, and I am so happy you're here. Whether you're listening while you're driving to work, folding laundry, taking your daily walk, or maybe you're just laying in bed trying to quiet your mind before you go to sleep. Thank you for spending this time with me. I hope wherever you are, you know that you are exactly where you need to be today. And before we get into it, I got a bone to pick with y'all. Which one of y'all was gonna tell me that the last episode did not have an intro or an outro? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, our sound engineer will be fired. Aka me. Anyway, let's get into it.

Why Peace Can Feel Uncomfortable

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I want to start this episode with a question. Have you ever noticed how uncomfortable peace can feel? Think about it. Your phone has been quiet all day, and instead of enjoying it, you start wondering if someone is upset with you. Work has finally slowed down, and instead of feeling grateful for a slower week, you convince yourself that maybe you're getting fired. Your relationship is healthy, but somehow your mind starts searching for red flags that aren't even there. Or your body feels great after weeks of taking care of yourself, and instead of celebrating that progress, you start wondering what's gonna go wrong next. It's almost like we've become uncomfortable with comfort. We've become so used to preparing for the next disaster that when nothing bad is happening, our brains decide to invent something. So today I want to ask you one simple question. What if nothing goes wrong? Not forever, not for the rest of your life, just today. What if today is allowed to simply be a good day? No hidden meaning, no surprise plot twist, no disaster, just waiting around the corner. Just a Wednesday, just peace. Just enough.

Living In Constant Anticipation

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I think somewhere along the way, many of us stop living in today. Instead, we started living in an anticipation. We're constantly waiting, waiting for the email, waiting for the diagnosis, waiting for someone to text us back, waiting for the other shoe to drop, um, just waiting for life to prove us right that we shouldn't have gotten our hopes up. And that's what's interesting. Most of us don't even realize we're doing it. It's become our default setting. We wake up, grab our phones, check our notifications, check the news, check our bank accounts, check social media, and before we even brush our teeth, our nervous systems are already scanning for evidence that something is wrong. Not because we're negative people, but because we're human. Our brains were designed to protect us. Thousands of years ago, our ancestors needed to constantly look for danger. A strange sound in the bushes could literally mean survival or death. Being alert kept people alive. The problem is our brains never got the memo that most of today's dangers aren't lions. They're unread emails, missed phone calls, delayed text messages, a meeting on your calendar, a bill you forgot about, a conversation you've been avoiding. Our minds treat uncertainty like it's an emergency. And if we're not

Imaginary Fires And Future Stories

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careful, we'll spend an entire day preparing for problems that never actually arrive. Have you ever replayed a conversation over and over in your head? You leave thinking, I shouldn't have said that. Or they probably think I'm weird. I bet they're upset. Then you find out they weren't thinking about it at all. Or maybe you've sent a text message, an hour goes by, then two, and suddenly you've created an entire movie in your head. They're mad, I said something wrong, they don't want to be friends anymore. Only for them to respond later with, oh, sorry, I was taking a nap. We've all done it. And while those moments seem funny when we look back, I wonder how much of our lives we're spending fighting imaginary fires. Not real ones, imaginary ones. We lose today's peace because of tomorrow's possibilities. And I don't know about you, but that sounds exhausting. There's a quote that I found that says, worry is like paying interest on a debt you don't even owe. And I think it's so true. Every day we spend emotional energy on things that haven't even happened. Some of us are grieving futures that don't even exist, mourning relationships that haven't even ended, or being afraid of failures that quite literally haven't happened. So our minds are like living six months ahead, and life is happening right here, right now. The coffee you're drinking, the sunshine coming through your window, the laugh you and your coworkers just shared, the song playing in your headphones, or me playing in your headphones, the hug you gave your child before school. Um, and sometimes it could just be a quiet dinner sitting on your table tonight. These moments don't ask for much, they just ask for your attention. But attention is hard to give when fear keeps pulling us into a future that hasn't even been written yet. And maybe that's why joy feels so difficult because it's not because joy isn't available, but because our minds are just somewhere

Finding Joy In Ordinary Days

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else. They're rehearsing tomorrow instead of receiving today. And here's the thing: I don't think we talk enough about ordinary life. We celebrate promotions, engagements, new homes, big announcements, milestones, moments that deserve celebrating. But life, life isn't made of milestones. Life is mostly made of Tuesdays, it's grocery shopping, it's making dinner, watering your plants, sitting in traffic, laughing with the friends, it's folding laundry while your favorite podcast is playing in the background, aka the Choose Joy podcast. And if we allow ourselves to be happy during the highlight reel, or only during the highlight reel, we'll miss most of our lives because joy was never meant to live only in extraordinary moments, joy lives in the ordinary as well. I think one of the hardest things for us to accept is that sometimes peace feels unfamiliar, and when something feels unfamiliar, we don't always

When Protection Blocks Joy

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recognize it as good. Sometimes we mistake peace for boredom, we mistake civility for a lack of excitement and calm for something being wrong, and think about that. How often do we say things like everything is going too well, or I feel like something bad is about to happen, or I don't want to get too excited because I don't want to be disappointed. And I get it, I understand where that comes from. A lot of us have experienced moments where life changed rather quickly. We've had seasons where we thought everything was okay, and then something unexpected happened. We've experienced loss, we've experienced disappointment, we've experienced things that we may have never seen coming. So our brains literally learn don't relax too much, don't get too comfortable. Sorry, y'all. I just heard future in my mind. I just heard future in the back of my mind when I said that. Don't get too comfortable and don't celebrate too early. Um, because maybe, just maybe protecting ourselves from disappointment will make the pain hurt less. But here's the thing that I've been learning sometimes protecting yourself from disappointment also protects you from joy because you can't fully experience the beauty of a moment while simultaneously preparing yourself for it to end. And you're trying to fully receive love while constantly looking for the moment that it leaves. Um, you got to enjoy peace without searching for proof that it's about to disappear. Because at some point, we have to give ourselves permission to just be present, not because life is guaranteed to always be easy, not because bad things never happen, but because worrying about tomorrow does not actually prepare us for tomorrow, it just steals from today. That was good. What did I just say? Not no worrying about tomorrow doesn't actually prepare us for tomorrow, it just steals from today.

Quiet Blessings And Answered Prayers

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I really want to share something that has just been sitting with me this week, and it's just well, it's been sitting with me for some time. We we pray for things, and when they arrive, they don't always look the way that we expected them to. Okay, but what's next? What's the getch? How long will this last? And I wonder how many answered prayers we've missed because they've arrived quietly. And maybe the blessing wasn't the big moment that you were waiting for. Maybe the blessing was the random Wednesday where you woke up and felt okay. The friendship that felt easy. The morning where your mind wasn't racing. Um, it's the ability to laugh again after a difficult season, and just simply realizing I made it through something that I thought would break me. Sometimes we expect blessings to announce themselves, fireworks, a big sign, a dramatic change. And sometimes blessings just whisper. It is that still small voice, ordinary. The thing that you once prayed for can sometimes become so normal that we forget that it was something that we once hoped for, and that is such a beautiful reminder to just look around because there are probably things in our lives today that a past version of ourselves would be amazed by. The version of you five years ago would be proud. The version of you who was crying, hoping, waiting, wondering if things would get better. That version of you would look at yourself and your life today and say, Wow, we made it

Stop Delaying Happiness For Milestones

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here. And maybe today isn't perfect. Maybe there are still things that you're working through, maybe there's still prayers that you're waiting on, but that doesn't mean there isn't anything to celebrate. Two things can exist at the same time. I'm gonna make like just a bunch of quotes that I just say a little too much, but that is one because it's true, two things can exist at the same time, and we can still want more and appreciate what we have. You can still be growing and be grateful for where you're at right now. Um, and it's good to have goals, but don't forget to enjoy the season that you're currently in. I think sometimes we delay happiness because we think happiness is something that we have to earn, which we've talked about. And we tell ourselves, oh, I'll be happy when I get the promotion, I'll be happy when I lose the weight, I'll be happy when I move, I'll be happy when I find the relationship, I'll be happy when everything makes sense. But what happens when you get there? Or what happens if you never get there? What happens when you achieve the thing? If you haven't learned how to experience joy along the way, you'll immediately create a new finish line. There will always be another thing, another goal, another milestone, another reason to wait. And I don't want us to spend our whole lives waiting for permission to enjoy literally being alive because this moment matters too. This version of you definitely matters, and today matters.

The 24 Hour What If Challenge

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So I want to challenge everyone for the next 24 hours. I want you to notice how often your mind asks, What if something goes wrong? Notice the moment where you start creating a story. The text message you assume means something, the silence you interrupt negatively, the situation you immediately prepare yourself for. And when you catch yourself doing that, I want you to pause and I want you to ask a different question. What if nothing goes wrong? What if the meeting goes well? What if the conversation is okay? What if they aren't upset with you at all? What if this opportunity works out? What if the season isn't a warning sign? What if the season is actually peace? Like, what if you don't have to brace yourself for today? You know? Like you're allowed to receive this moment. So many of us have become experts at surviving. We know how to push through, we know how to handle chaos, we know how to prepare for the worst. But maybe the next lesson isn't learning how to survive another storm. Maybe the lesson is learning how to sit in the sunshine or just trust the good moments. You know, peace doesn't always mean something bad is coming. Sometimes peace just means you're finally at peace.

Choose Joy Without Denying Hard Things

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And before we close today's episode, I want you to take a second and really think about this. What if nothing goes wrong today? Not everything is perfect, not everything is figured out, not every question has to have an answer right this second. In this exact moment, you are okay. You don't need to solve your entire future tonight. You can just be here. Breathing, growing, learning, living. The ordinary moments are actually gifts. It's a gift because at the end of the day, choosing joy doesn't mean pretending life is perfect, it doesn't mean ignoring the hard things, okay? Choosing joy means refusing to let fear steal moments that are meant to be lived. It meant it means noticing the good, receiving the present. It means trusting that not every quiet moment is the calm before a storm. Sometimes it's just calm, and that's okay. And maybe today we just let a good day be a good day. We stop searching for what is wrong. Today we choose joy. Okay. So thank you so much for spending this time with me as always. I hope this episode reminded you to slow down, look around, and notice the beautiful things that are quite literally already here. Until next time, and um choose joy. Duh. Okay, cue the montage.