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Writer's pictureKaren Price Owen

What is Joy?

I encourage my clients to find a little joy in their day. Often they will ask "What is joy?"


To answer the question, or to get a better language around that feeling, I consulted several sources for identifying and understanding the emotion of joy, one is “Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience”, by Brené Brown. 

 



Chapter 11 is titled: “Places We Go When Life Is Good”, (could you ask for a better title than that?)  The emotions represented here are Joy, Happiness, Calm, Contentment, Gratitude, Foreboding Joy, Relief, and Tranquility.  (All but foreboding joy seems to fit here, however, I realize after reading the chapter the importance of it.  But that’s off-topic for today.)

 

Brené believes and shares that joy is “the good mood of the soul”.  And she states, “Based on our research, joy is defined as an intense feeling of deep spiritual connection, pleasure, and appreciation”.

 

The better part of that description is based on researcher Matthew Kuan Johnson’s belief that when we experience joy, we don’t lose ourselves, we become more truly ourselves.  Let me repeat that, In joy, we don’t lose ourselves, we become more truly ourselves.  OF COURSE, isn’t that what we all want, to become more truly ourselves? 

 

Mr. Johnson goes on…. we see colors more vividly, our physical movements seem freer and easier, and we smile involuntarily.  Sometimes we even weep from the overwhelm of joy. Tears of joy, right? 

 

In her TED Talk about joy and design, Ingrid Fetell Lee stated: "Each moment of joy is small, but over time, they add up to more than the sum of their parts. And so maybe instead of chasing after happiness, what we should be doing is embracing joy and finding ways to put ourselves in the path of it more often. Deep within us, we all have this impulse to seek out joy in our surroundings. And we have it for a reason. Joy isn't some superfluous extra. It's directly connected to our fundamental instinct for survival. On the most basic level, the drive toward joy is the drive toward life."

 

Here’s another juicy bit about joy.  There is a strong correlation between gratitude and joy – an intriguing upward spiral meaning practicing gratitude predicts future experiences of in-the-moment joy.  And joy predicts future experiences of in-the-moment gratitude.  And situational joy predicts greater future well-being.  What a powerful thought…. there’s an upward spiral to joy and gratitude…. we can access that to prevent or stop a downward spiral.  Powerful.

 

The key here is to PRACTICE gratitude.  In other words, you must do more than believe you’re grateful, you have to DO something.  That something doesn’t need to be difficult, it can be as easy as stopping in the middle of your day and saying out loud “I am grateful for…….”, or you can keep a daily gratitude journal – which only requires an entry or two, short sentences or even just a few words expressing what you are grateful for.  You can also practice it in meditations or prayers.  Neuroscientist, Tara Swart Bieber, MD, PHD, practices gratitude every morning before getting out of bed – she states to herself that she’s grateful for the wonderful night’s rest, for her soft and comfortable bedsheets, and for the things she’s about to do in her day. 

 

Here's more awesome news for you…. joy is accessible ANY TIME YOU WANT TO EXPERIENCE IT. 

 

Seriously.  It’s Springtime on the East Coast of the US as I write this.  On my morning walk, I notice the trees are sprouting new leaves, flowers are blooming and the overwhelming colors surrounding me are bright and beautiful. And as I walk and take in nature’s brilliance, I feel joy.  Pure joy.  And for that, I am truly grateful.  Ah, I’m feeling the spiral effect of a connection to nature, the pleasure of it all, and the deep appreciation for it.

 

Go ahead, give joy a try. And drop me a message about how it works for you.

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