So one of the primary emotions that we experience is joy and often joy, while something we’re all familiar with, it’s something that here at Good Therapy SF, a common question we hear is, how do I experience more of it?
So when I talk to clients about joy initially, what I really talk about is doing the things that lead to joy, that kind of build the opportunity for you to experience it, as opposed to hoping that you can tap into it right away. So it’s really useful to think about joy as the nice outcome of doing all the things that can contribute to it, as opposed to something that you can just flip on a switch immediately.
So what are some of those things you can do in your life that can cultivate or build joy into your daily life? One of those things is going to be gratitude practices. So such as keeping a gratitude journal. Or even just mentally going throughout the day and observing those moments when you do feel a sense of gratitude and being more aware and attuned to those types of moments can help with cultivating joy.
Another approach is being more aware or using mindfulness skills. So often staying present, in and of itself will produce joy. Although ironically the minute you realize that you’re experiencing joy, it often reduces the amount of joy that you’re feeling, which teaches us that being more focused and connected to the present moment, in and of itself will just make you observe and notice the joy that you’re feeling.
So in addition to mindfulness, there’s also connection. Building relationships with other people, often can bring about a sense of joy as well. In fact, isolation or withdrawing from others is one of the main contributors that makes people feel like complete absence of joy in their lives. We all have this desire to connect and be around others in a way that works for us, even if you’re an introvert, but some type of connection is really going to help promote joy in your life.
And then lastly, another way to cultivate joy in your life is to make sure you’re engaging in those types of activities that you like to do or small pleasures. It doesn’t have to be a big thing, sometimes people enjoy taking walks outside working out. I’ve even heard people enjoy buying a special type of coffee in the morning. But making sure you’re allowing yourself to have some type of pleasurable thing that you enjoy doing and doing that a little bit every single day can also help with experiencing and cultivating joy in your life as well.
Sometimes there are barriers to joy because we feel a sense of burden or responsibility as though we’re not allowed to experience joy yet. We’re like, no, I have too much to do. And if you feel like you’re one of those folks, that’s reasonable, that’s fair, but I would just encourage you to be more curious about that and recognize that very often you can become more effective in your life, if you allow yourself to experience joy when it occurs. You don’t have to always try to resist or suppress that stuff in the sake of being responsibility or effective. Because it actually overall will make you a more engaged, helpful person.
And then lastly, it’s important to remember too, that when it comes to joy, again, we want to make sure that we’re not over emphasizing the desire to have it. Again, really try to look at joy as something that is a nice by-product that comes from doing the things in your life that are meaningful, that are healthy, that are relationship building. If you focus on those activities, joy will be there. You just have to give it space to emerge.
So if you have any questions about this or you feel like as we’re talking about primary emotions here, you have questions, please feel free to reach out to us here at Good Therapy SF.
Take care.
