501-What Is Joy?

Exploring the concept of “both/and” when it comes to feeling joyful and emotions.   

 

Transcript:

 

Welcome to Everyday Happiness where we create lasting happiness, in about 2 minutes a day,  through my signature method of Intentional Margins® (creating harmony between your to-dos and your priorities), happiness science, and musings about life. 

 

I'm your host Katie Jefcoat, and I was talking with my great friend Wendy Reed, she’s a life and work coach specializing in mental fitness and helping people through stuck places.  

 

The conversation turned to this concept “both / and''.  And how we hold and walk through emotions.  How do we hold both joy and sadness or joy and happiness?  Wendy believes we have the capacity to hold both because joy is the underlying current that runs through our bodies, while happiness or sadness is an emotion. 

 

There is some research that indicates we can’t hold two emotions at once.  Like happiness and anger.  It’s hard to smile and be angry.  Our brains can’t process this.  But joy, perhaps this is not really an emotion as much as a state of being.  

 

Maybe that’s the ah-ha moment. To think about what joy is for you.  Can you see how it’s the underlying current of your ora, of your being?  If that’s true for you? Are you lumping in joy as an emotion when perhaps it’s something different all together?

 

Wendy argues, and I agree, that even if you are depressed you can find moments of happiness. Even in grief, you can find happiness and can feel joyful.  

 

I invite you to explore what joy means for you.  And if you conclude that it is the underlying current of your being, as Wendy suggests, maybe there is an ah-ha moment in this exploration for you too.  

 

Until next time, remember, kindness is contagious.    

 

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