Reclaiming Your Joy

Joy and happiness are distinct childhood feelings for many of us. What is Joy and is your’s alive after adulting?

“Joy is one part of inner peace, one part giddy delight and 100% attainable.” Oprah Winfrey

Last weekend a winter storm dumped over a foot of dry, powdery snow on the Pacific Northwest, the best kind for any form of outdoor recreation. It started drifting down in the city of Seattle Friday night and set every kid’s foot tap dancing through their dreams in greedy anticipation of the morn.

Since we are like Rome, a city founded on seven hills, the arrival of a fairly rare snowstorm shuts us down. We woke up to a hushed winter wonderland, tiny flakes still drifting rapidly down.

I’m a kid at heart and prefer to hang out in zones containing hits of joy and happiness whenever possible. A region children often inhabit. I could hardly wait to put on my new running shoes and crunch crunch a virgin path down to the lake.

Everything delighted me. The light blanketing the world, peals of laughter from excited youngsters launching themselves on sleds, garbage can lid and whatever else they could find. Zooming recklessly down our steep streets with an immortal abandon only the young can claim as their own. The ephemeral joyride followed by an inevitable trudge back up the hill. Adults on cross country skis, gliding silently by with a friendly nod and smiley eyes.

I hadn’t heard so much laughter in months and realized I was laughing too. The happiness was contagious and acts of whimsy abounded.

I tromped around gaily for two hours, invited into a soft play snowball exchange with a run wild group of teens. Red-winged blackbirds sent out alarming trills, joining our merriment from overhead branches. I reached a point of ecstasy when two Anna hummingbirds whirred in front of my face, hovering over my magenta jacket in pursuit of nectar. I love you, I called out as they darted away. A total bliss freak.

Back home I steamed an extra hot latte and settled in to read the Special Time Edition magazine on The Power of Joy. The varied articles contained interesting facts, a few confirming my beliefs about the subtle difference between joy and happiness. Both of these emotions are in short supply in our societies lately and they’re both vital to our well being.

Joy is accompanied by a surge of feel-good dopamine and is described as a complex, multi-dimensional experience. Ancient Egyptians believed they would be asked two questions after death. The first was “Did you bring joy?” The second was ‘Did you find joy?”

Robert Emmons, a professor of psychology at UC Davis believes “Happiness is an inch deep and a mile wide, whereas joy is a mile deep, and a mile wide.”

Since I’m a lover of language roots, I was excited to learn the Hebrew word for joy is ‘simcha’, related to the word ‘tzamach’, meaning “to sprout, spring up or grow.” The origin word for happiness is ‘ashrei’, related to the idea of being fortunate due to luck and external, fleeting factors.

Joy seems to reflect our internal state more deeply than happiness. It’s arrival is unpredictable and therefore seen as more of a gift. We can experience happiness without tapping into joy, but joy does not require happiness to precede it.

People who experience a high degree of happiness in their lives have an underlying sense of well being which allows them to return to their core more quickly. They are resilient and able to enter flow states.

When we’re in the flow, activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex slows. This is the part of our brain we use for planning and self-monitoring.

In contrast, the medial prefrontal cortex gears up. This area governs the expression of ourselves. Inhibitions recede and creativity surges, due to the release of neurochemicals such as endorphins, dopamine and serotonin, the feel gooders.

Two broad categories defining happiness are known as hedonic and eudaemonic. Hedonic is felt through personal gratification whereas eudaemonic is felt through the deep fulfilment of service performed for others or a taxing chore or job you successfully completed. Both are essential for overall happiness.

So how do we bring the valuable states of joy and happiness into more prominence in our daily lives?

I can name a few sure-fire guarantees which boost happiness in my own life, humor, gratitude, exercise and rewarding social interactions. Joy is always more available when I’m outdoors in nature. A Raven’s croak or an Eagle’s call can perk me up in the worst of times.

Being in nature reduces our human stress response by producing alpha brain waves which increase our sense of relaxation, opening the door to a possible moment of awe.

Nina Smiley, co-author of ‘Mindfulness in Nature’ reports “The natural world stimulates all our senses at once. That helps us to focus outward, clearing the mind and calming the body.”

Being outside can immediately refresh your page by deleting your thoughts and shifting your perspective from close to a grander scale.

“Joy is a divine quality of our true self, which is inherently lighthearted, playful and free. You can see the full expression of this joy in young children who haven’t learned to worry or take themselves too seriously. They play and laugh freely, finding wonder in the smallest things. They are infinitely creative because they haven’t yet built up the layers of conditioning that create limitations and restrictions.” Deepak Chopra

Humor is another saving grace for myself and many others as well. Laughter releases dopamine, lowers cortisol, a stress hormone, and increases slightly euphoric endorphins, including oxytocin which stimulates trust. Our bodies react by relaxing muscles, increasing blood flow and reducing arterial wall stiffness. Maybe if we learned to laugh at ourselves and the world more often we would have less heart disease.

If you’re feeling depressed or down, the absolute worst thing you can do is go into denial about your feelings. The counter-intuitive cure for a dark space is to enter it and let yourself feel the depth of what ails you. If you run away your grief will come back to haunt you in a never-ending cycle of denial and despair. If you’re convinced you will never feel better you can pretty much guarantee you won’t.

Embrace the challenges which inevitably arise by proactively searching for and integrating micro hits of pleasure to balance out your negativity. The Japanese call this principle ‘kaizen’, meaning continual small improvements for the better.

A simple act like buying a bouquet of fresh flowers in winter or biting into a crunchy, flavorful apple can immediately uplift me into an amplified state of pleasure. As my pleasure meter soars, it becomes easier to find gratitude for things I usually don’t reflect on, such as turning on the tap and getting a stream of clean water. Many people don’t have this basic human requirement and in an appreciative state, I take note of my privilege.

The more I shift into gratitude the more I spot the many ways in which my life is blessed. It’s almost like the field around me magnifies and registers this enhanced state as well.

A phone call from a dear friend will chime, a coyote appears and we have an exhilarating stare down before she swaggers off with a look of disdain for the silly human before her. One never knows what or who will show up when gratitude is activated, but you can bet you will like it.

Naomi Bagdonas, a co-author of ‘Humor Seriously’ states: “The differentiator between those who relentlessly find moments of joy and levity, even in the most challenging times, and those who don’t are small but important — it’s choice and practice. You have to choose to look for reasons to be delighted and, more importantly, create small moments of delight for other people.”

Our brains have the ability to create new neural pathways in all stages of life. We are constantly pruning back synapses we no longer need and adding new entrainments based on our life experiences.

This neural activity is where our personal choices lie. It’s in our power to create and activate micro-moments, fueling your sense of happiness and perhaps even pointing the way to a trail named Joy. Smell a fragrant flower. Eat a hot doughnut and relish every bite. Whatever engages your personal delight.

Conscious choice requires work and a sense of commitment to your well being in the beginning. If you take small daily steps, you will soon realize you don’t have to consider gratitude or appreciation, you are feeling it as an ebb and flow with its own natural rhythm.

You might end up like me, a contented eccentric who often ends up laughing after crying. A full release, permitting me to sail onward with Joy as my North Star.

Speaking of which, my Joy batteries are still fully charged from our storm even though the barest traces remain. It must’ve produced one hell of a dopamine surge in my system. Forget my taxes. They can wait. I’m off to admire budding crocuses, those harbingers of spring on the way, a far more important mission.