Episode 52: Why You Shouldn't Delay Joy, But Why You Might Delay it Anyway

Welcome to the Carousel of Happiness Podcast.

On today’s episode, we’re going to talk about joy. Specifically why you shouldn’t delay it, and why, despite your best efforts, you might delay it anyway. We’ll learn about what joy does to our bodies physiologically, why a Harvard researcher thinks joy is the deepest reason for us to exist at all, and what research shows about why human beings protect themselves from joy, despite it being good for us. Plus, I’ll share some simple practices you can start to incorporate now into your daily life as a way to cultivate more joy.

Transcript

Welcome to the Carousel of Happiness Podcast. I’m your host, Allie Wagner. 

I want to thank you, Dear Listener, for your patience with the podcast the last couple of weeks. Tech glitches and power outages, coupled with my own personal struggles have made it challenging for me to show up on the podcast in the way I have in the past. I appreciate your patience and your grace.

But, thanks to the resiliency of the human spirit and a couple of consecutive, non-windy days, we are back at it. I hope you are enjoying your holiday season, however you spend it, and I look forward to sharing with you more uplifting stories related to the Carousel of Happiness.

On today’s episode, we’re going to talk about joy. Specifically why you shouldn’t delay it, and why, despite your best efforts, you might delay it anyway. We’ll learn about what joy does to our bodies physiologically, why a Harvard researcher thinks joy is the deepest reason for us to exist at all, and what research shows about why human beings protect themselves from joy, despite it being good for us. Plus, I’ll share some simple practices you can start to incorporate now into your daily life as a way to cultivate more joy.

Let us begin with today’s story.

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Joy. What is joy? The dictionary defines joy as “a feeling of great pleasure and happiness,” and while that might be technically accurate, it feels a bit lacking to me.

Joy, like many human emotions in my opinion, is best felt than described. For me, I feel joy when I get a serious case of the giggles with a friend. For me, I feel joy when I stand at the top of a mountain after a long hike or when I sink to the bottom of a hot natural spring. Joy for me is watching my puppy prance around the living room wiggling his butt with my slipper in his mouth. Joy to me is feeling my husband’s arms around me and his warm breath whispering in my ear. 

Joy doesn’t just feel good, it’s good for you. Experiencing the sensation of joy strengthens the immune system by boosting the production of antibodies and enhancing the body’s ability to fight infection.

Joy reduces stress and cortisol levels, which, in turn, reduce inflammation in the body and the likelihood of chronic illnesses like heart disease and diabetes.

Joy improves the function of our cardiovascular system by lowering blood pressure and reducing the risk of heart disease. It also enhances mental resiliency and improves the quality of our sleep.

Harvard-trained sociologist, life coach, and bestselling author, Dr. Martha Beck, knew how important joy was when she was confronted with a challenging decision midway through her doctoral program. When she was six months pregnant with her son, he was diagnosed with Down Syndrome and she needed to decide if she wanted to continue with the pregnancy. Having a child with Down Syndrome would drastically impact her career and goals at the time, and it would also impact the life, of course, of her child.

In reflecting on the decision and wondering what both her life and her son’s life would be like if he was born, she boiled her decision down to one simple question. She asked her doctors, “If born, will my son be able to experience joy?”

The doctors said yes. And Martha’s son, Adam, was born two months later. 

Martha had seen when she looked around Harvard that there were many extremely smart and successful people there, but not all of them were happy. In reflecting, she realized that joy is actually the deepest reason for us to exist at all. According to Ralph Waldo Emerson, beauty is its own excuse for being. And joy is beauty felt. Therefore, joy, according to Dr. Beck, is its own excuse for being.

In making this decision, Martha was told she was throwing her life away, and in many ways, she acknowledges that was true. But what her son has taught her about joy, mindfulness, presence, and love has given her a new life that she says is truly blessed beyond what she could ever have imagined at the time. 

And intuitively we understand this. On a certain level most of us will agree that joy is important. And it feels good. But, for so many of us, it can feel illusive. It can feel slippery. We get caught up in our busy lives and wake up one day realizing we can’t remember the last time we felt joy.

Why is that? Why is it that we know something is good for us, but we don’t make time for it. We don’t allow ourselves to feel joy on a regular basis.

Turns out, researcher Brene Brown might have some answers for us. In her now famous Ted Talk about vulnerability, Brene describes a movie scene she showed to participants in one of her sociological studies. 

It’s a scene with a family driving on Christmas morning to grandma’s house. It’s snowy and beautiful. Mom and dad are in the front seat and adorably well-behaved children are tucked in the back. In the scene, everyone is joyful and a well-loved Christmas carol comes on the radio. The whole family starts to sing in unison, likely all in tune of course, and then – the scene cuts to black.

When Brene and her fellow researchers asked participants what they thought happened next, 60% of them said, “car crash.”

Brene goes on to describe another common scenario she saw in her study. Parents described a moment when they would come into their child’s room while they slept and watch them. In that moment, they described feeling a sensation of profound bliss and connection start to bubble up within them. And also, immediately after that sensation of bliss, they would have a terrible thought or daydream about something awful happening to their child.

Why?

Brene believes, based on decades of sociological research, that the reason for this is that we, as a whole, are losing our tolerance for vulnerability. In general, we see vulnerability as a weakness.

Joy is an extremely vulnerable emotion. As is love, belonging, creativity, and faith. All the good stuff. In order to experience these emotions fully, we must let down our guard. We must lower the armor we erect all around us to protect ourselves in order to experience a  connection we can’t always explain.

What those parents were experiencing in that moment was what Brene Brown calls “foreboding joy.”

“Foreboding joy” is what happens when we don’t have a tolerance for vulnerability and we try to beat it to the punch by anticipating the other shoe dropping. By rehearsing the potential tragedy in our minds so as to not be disappointed. For those parents, the moment they felt that juicy yet terrifying sensation of genuine connection with their child, they immediately anticipated something bad happening in order to stop feeling that feeling of vulnerability. 

When we fear vulnerability, we don’t allow ourselves to be excited about something because there’s the real possibility that thing won’t come true. So, disappointment becomes a lifestyle, she says. Because it is easier to live our lives feeling disappointed rather than feeling the sensation of disappointment. We guarantee that we won’t be let down if we never allow ourselves to open up.

And we avoid this sensation of vulnerability by numbing ourselves. Through things like food, busyness, alcohol, and drugs. But what Brene says is that you cannot selectively numb emotions. If you numb the dark ones, you also numb the good ones. It essentially turns the volume knob down on our entire lives, limiting the breadth of sensations available to us.

So, what do we do? We know joy is life-giving and is good for our bodies, but we also know that it can be tricky. 

What Brene Brown suggests is to cultivate gratitude. She says what joyful people do when they experience that little shudder of fear that might come after a blissful moment, is they immediately switch into gratitude. Instead of rehearsing what they don’t want, they ground themselves in the present moment by focusing on what they have right now. Her research has found there is a direct connection between the sensation of joy and the feeling of gratitude. Gratitude is essentially the seed of joy. Gratitude allows us to get back on track when our natural human tendency is to derail us in order to avoid vulnerability.

Which brings me back to Dr. Beck. In her 2003 book “The Joy Diet,” Martha describes 10 easy, daily practices you can engage in to cultivate more joy in your life. I’m going to warn you, though, none of them are wild and crazy. Some of them are so obvious it makes you wonder why a Harvard PhD would take the time to write something so simple.

But after decades of working with clients as a life coach, Dr. Beck has found that many of us don’t even think about these practices, as simple as they might be. And those of us who do, frequently forget them. She recommends incorporating them one at a time, starting with the first one, which can be the most difficult for some of us. 

Ready?

1. Nothing: Do nothing for 15 minutes a day. Take time to get quiet and clear about what actually matters to you, rather than chasing what everyone else is chasing.
2. Truth: Create a moment of truth every day to help you unmask what you’re hiding from yourself and from others. The truth is very vulnerable and many of us avoid telling it in order to avoid feeling that sensation of vulnerability.
3. Desire: Identify, articulate, and explore at least one of heart’s desires and learn how to let yourself get what you want.
4. Creativity: Learn six new ways to develop at least one of your ideas to help you obtain one of your heart’s desires.
5. Risk: Take one baby step toward reaching your goal every day. The only rule is that the baby step must, as she says, “scare the pants off of you.”
6. Treats: Give yourself a treat for every risk you take. And two treats just because you’re you. No exceptions. No excuses.
7. Play: Take a moment to remember your real life’s work and separate it from the games you play to achieve it. Then play with your whole heart.
8. Laughter: Laugh at least 30 times a day.
9. Connection: Interact with someone who matters to you.
10. Feast: Enjoy three square feasts a day. A Martha Beck “joy feast” is one in which you bring attention and ritual into the sensations you experience in everyday life. This can, of course, include food, but it can also include any activity you engage in that incorporates your senses. Massages, walks in the woods, going to an art museum, anything that is a feast for your senses.

What do you think? Pretty easy, right? This episode reminds me of something that came up in my conversation with Travis Holp. Just because something is simple doesn’t mean it’s easy. If you’re curious to learn more about how you can cultivate more joy in your daily life, be sure to check out Martha Beck’s book, “The Joy Diet.”

On next week’s episode, we will finally get to my letter of gratitude to the Carousel of Happiness. I’ll share with you what I’ve learned about myself this past year with the intention that it might spark some reflection in you as well.

In the meantime, take care. Be well. And, as we like to say at the Carousel of Happiness, “don’t delay joy.” But, if you do, it’s okay. And we’ll see you next time around.