What to do when joy brings fear
We started this week of our Celebrating December Well journey by transforming barriers like pain, fatigue, and overwhelm into guides to Be Well Now. But what about joy? What do you do when joy brings fear?
Researcher Brene Brown shines a light on a reaction each of us can have when we feel emotions like joy, love, and peace; it triggers fear!
She says " When we're overwhelmed by love, we feel vulnerable—so we dress-rehearse tragedy".
She explains further in this article, "Though I study scary emotions like anger and shame for a living, I think the most terrifying human experience is joy. It's as if we believe that by truly feeling happiness, we're setting ourselves up for a sucker punch".
We humans are pretty fascinating arent we?! We take this amazing emotion like joy and turn it into fear.
Ingrid Fetell Lee in her TED Talk below describes joy as "an intense, momentary experience of positive emotion --one that makes us smile and laugh and feel like we want to jump up and down".
Why do we take that and turn it into a scary movie? Because that is what sells books and movies. Forboding joy is a conditioned response that has been wired into your brain from every fictional story you have watched or read. It's the making of engaging stories but not the way life really works.
What can we do about this? Well, this time of year is an ideal time to practice rewiring what happens when you feel joy. Joyful moments abound everywhere you look- driving at night and seeing white lights floating in bare treats, the smile on a child's face when they see a loved one, the feeling of a hug from a friend after they open your gift, hearing stories in the news of people doing random acts of kindness, the smell of gingerbread. Where have you found joy this season?
As you recall your sources of joy, notice how you feel it in your body. Your heart knows what brings you joy. Your primal brain is drawn to joy. These are the places that know how to savor joy.
To savor means to enjoy completely. Using your whole person to experience joy lets it last a bit longer. Dr. Rick Hanson calls this taking in the good. It's a science-based practice of letting positive emotions stick. When you do this, you are changing your biochemistry to promote healing, resilience, and happiness.
Savor joy by feeling it in your body, using your senses. This way even if your initial reaction to joy is fear, you have a pathway back to joy and a way to rewire the enjoyment of joy.
Transform this barrier to feeling joy into a guide by staying present when joy triggers fear and knowing your body is the way out of that habit. Practice savoring joy as a way of celebrating well that has benefits all year long.
Stay tuned for more tips on Celebrating December Well tomorrow.
Share this with someone you know who wants to celebrate December in the Well State.
Why wait until January to be well?
Are you stuck in the trying-to-be-healthy state? Learn the internal skills to Be Well Now and end the struggle to eat healthily, exercise regularly, and manage stress.
Exercising Well is so much more than an exercise program. It's a pathway to rewiring mindsets that keep you stuck.
You learn what to do and how to be self-motivated even if you are limited by pain, medical issues, stress or lack of time.
