The Power of Small Pockets of Joy: How 5 Minutes Can Reset Your Whole Day

Have you ever had one of those tiny moments — so brief, so unexpected — that completely shifted your mood or your day? In this episode, I share a story from a cold, cloudy walk where a quick flash of sunshine reminded me of the incredible power of small, intentional moments of joy.

For mission-driven leaders and changemakers, it’s easy to believe that you “don’t have time” for self-care or that meaningful rest must be big, long, or perfectly planned. But the truth?

Small doesn’t mean insignificant. Small can be powerful — and sustainable.

In this episode, you’ll learn:
 • How a 30-second moment of warmth shifted my entire emotional state
 • Why micro-moments of joy help regulate your nervous system
 • How tiny resets support burnout prevention and creative energy
 • The simple 5-Minute Joy Moment you can use anytime
 • The compounding effect of small practices over time
 • How these moments help you reconnect with yourself and your mission

At the end, I share my Thoughtful Three — three reflective questions to help you explore, embody, and elevate these practices so you can create sustainable impact without losing yourself.

If you’re ready to reignite your inner light, join the Reignite Your Inner Light Challenge:

7 minutes a day for 7 days to cultivate mindfulness, joy, and inner peace.
 

👉 Link https://www.michellevandehey.com/store

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Transcript

  📍 Have you ever had one of those small moments? It was so brief, but it really changed everything for you. It changed your mood, maybe even changed your entire day. Today I'm gonna share a story with you about how a walk on a cloudy day with a moment of sunshine really shifted everything for me and how your own five minutes a day can do the same thing.

If you are someone who has spent a lifetime prioritizing everyone else's needs over your own, and you don't know who you are anymore, you feel like you're asking yourself, who am I? You're exhausted, overwhelmed, and yet you wanna make a difference in the world.

You wanna create a bigger impact. You are not alone. It's time to prioritize yourself and. Power your mission. It's time to love your life on purpose. I'm Michelle Vande, hay conscious leadership and embodiment coach, speaker, author, and advocate to mission driven leaders and change makers like you.



After I share my story today, I will share my thoughtful three questions to ask yourself to help you make shifts in your everyday life. Recently I was on a walk. I go for a walk almost every day with my dog, which I have to be quiet saying that word because he's sitting right here. And if he hears that word too much, he might think it's time to go.

And it's obviously for him because he needs to go every day. It's also for me, this is something I was doing on a regular basis before we decided to bring him home last year.  And although  these strolls around the neighborhood have become a little bit more of a necessity for taking care of my dog.

Before that they were something that were really, for me, it was a time for me to reset. And if you follow me on social media at all, and my stories, I often share that. Like, this is my midday reset. I went for a walk. I don't share as many pictures in the winter because it's a little colder to take selfies outside in the winter and in the fall.

These mid days are my resets and this particular walk that we went on, it's starting to get colder. There's definitely those windy days, and I remember it was a colder day. It was windy and it was mostly cloudy. It was not the ideal walking weather, and I felt like we had something going on in our family and I was just kind of frustrated, overwhelmed, and not even really wanting to go on the walk, even though I knew it could help me. 

So I was kind of like grumpy on this walk, walking my dog and just being like, oh, come on. Let's go. Go to the bathroom so we can just be done with this walk. Because I was cold too, and it wasn't, it wasn't filling me up like I would want it to. Then all of a sudden we were about halfway through the walk and the sun peaked out  and it just like peaked out from behind the clouds and it felt so warm on my face because that's pretty much all my skin that was exposed to the elements. 

And I just took a moment. I faced the sun, closed my eyes, and slowed my breathing down.  And in that moment.  I expressed gratitude for the sun. I expressed gratitude for being outside  and it really shifted everything for me. Not only shifting how I felt about the walk, but it shifted the rest of my day as well and it felt so good.

And there are a few key things with this. One is  I slowed down. Two. I express gratitude, especially for something that I wasn't very grateful for. Moments prior, I wasn't grateful for being outside 'cause it was cold and windy and cloudy. And in that moment I decided, well, I could be grateful for being outside even though this was a fleeting moment of sunshine.

It really meant everything for me. Then thirdly, it helped me to really embody it by slowing down and breathing and noticing in my body. I embodied the gratitude, which helped me to embody this sense of peace, which really felt like joy, because sun and being outside typically brings me joy. So out of this 20 minute walk this.

 30 second to one minute moment of sunshine plus a couple more before it ended really made a big difference for me, and it reminded me of  the power of these tiny moments that I help my clients experience. I help them to figure out what.  What are their tiny pockets of joy?

What are their tiny pockets of letting go? What are their tiny pockets of a reset? A reset can be an entire day. It can be an entire weekend. It can be  one to two minutes a day.

Small doesn't have to mean insignificant. Small can actually be powerful, especially when you think about it as  in the compounding effect. That one moment, even though my one moment really shifted me for the rest of the day, that moment coupled by another moment and another moment. It makes it more sustainable and makes it more long lasting.

It's that compound effect of these small moments. And if you are someone who was like, yeah, I'd really love to have something intentional  that are these small, brief moments that don't have to take up my entire day and don't feel like just another thing to do. I created the  reignite your inner light challenge, and it's seven minutes a day for seven days  to experience mindfulness, peace, joy in seven minutes a day to reignite that inner light in you  so that you can continue to create long lasting sustainable impact while prioritizing your own needs.

If you want to join that challenge, feel free to go in the show notes or in

the caption below and all of the details are there.

So these small moments matter because oftentimes you as a change maker or mission driven leader or caregiver, feel like I don't have the time to. Experience, joy. I don't have time for self-care. I don't have time to do this,  but these small pockets of joy can help too. Shift your nervous system. It can help to reset your energy and help you to really reengage with your creativity with your authentic self.

That helps you to be creative in a way that helps you to create more impact without sacrificing your own needs and to really help you to reconnect with yourself. Don't negate these small moments throughout your day. They are so powerful. So let me walk you through this five minute joy moment.

So number one, just choose a five minute window. It doesn't necessarily have to be scheduled. If it is, that can help you to make sure that you're not. Saying, well, I can just wait for later. 'cause that's what we tend to do as mission-driven leaders, is we ignore our own needs for the needs of everyone else. 

But it can also be if you have a embodiment practice where you are starting to notice your body throughout the day, instead of ignoring it and you're noticing tension, you're noticing fatigue, you're noticing overwhelm, or you're noticing that you're on autopilot.  This is when you can take the moment, set a timer for five minutes, maybe it's three minutes, however long. 

It doesn't necessarily have to be more than five minutes, and do something that either sparks joy or helps you to embody a sense of. Peace and calm, and so maybe you step outside and feel the sun or the air on your skin. Maybe you take a moment to move your body a little bit. Maybe you stretch if you're part of my membership.

You might  take five minutes to go through one of the embodiment practices instead of doing the whole 20 minute practice. Maybe you just do the five minutes, maybe you sip on something warm, or if you're like me this time of year, sometimes I like to just have a warm mug near me, even if I'm not drinking anything out of it.

You might put your hands on your heart or your stomach. Notice your breath. Maybe you intentionally breathe for a few breaths. Maybe you look out the window. Maybe you step away from your screen for five minutes. Maybe you shift your environment for five minutes.  You could light a candle. You could take a lap around the house.

There are so many options. Do it for five minutes with your timer and then after your timer, ask yourself this one question,  how do I feel now compared to how I felt five minutes ago? And if you're doing this practice right now, feel free to leave it in the comments and let me know how you felt after this five minutes.

This reflection can really help anchor and help you to embody what just happened for you,  and then celebrate it and acknowledge and let this really count, let it know that this matters and that small doesn't just count, but it really compounds over time and makes a big difference. Okay, so let's get to the thoughtful three, these three questions to help you to embody this practice.

Number one, where in my day could I allow myself five minutes of joy, rest, or warmth? Even if everything else feels like it's a cloudy day that  you don't wanna participate in.

As a reminder, it doesn't have to be some quote unquote, perfect time to do this. Take an opportunity when it presents itself. There's no right time to do this. Number two, what tiny practice or moment can be reliable to bring you a sense of calm, a sense of ease, or a sense of reconnection to yourself, and it sometimes could be so small that you overlook it.

And number three, how would my week feel different if I honored these micro moments of joy instead of dismissing them? And really embody this 'cause when we can explore this and embody it, it helps you to evolve and elevate.  So today, don't underestimate your five minutes of joy, your five minutes of self-care, or your five minutes of sunshine, 

these tiny moments might be the spark that you need to keep you going, to keep you showing up and to keep you creating the impact that you were meant to create. If this message resonated with you and you thought of someone, please send this message to them because they are looking for this message.

Feel free to leave a, like if you are on YouTube.  Leave a comment and always remember that you are worth it. You are worth the five minutes