"Having spent several years studying what it means to feel joyful, I’d argue that joy is probably the most difficult emotion to really feel." - Brene Brown
You would think joy would be one of the easier emotions to feel compared to the less-than-desirables out there, but joy can leave us feeling vulnerable. Brene gives the example of putting her children to bed at night and being overwhelmed with love for them and fear for if she ever lost them. We know that life is often outside of our control and sometimes trying to prepare ourselves for the worst can keep us from experiencing joy in the moment.
For me, I can think of two examples in which I haven't been letting myself feel joy fully.
1) I absolutely love my new job. Because my last job was not a healthy work environment, I often get afraid of feeling extreme joy with my current work situation because I just didn't believe I was capable of experiencing this and now I'm afraid of it being an illusion.
2) Mike getting back into JAG. Both of us have struggles with actually feeling the joy associated with Mike actually getting through the medical clearance process with JAG. We were so happy at the beginning of this whole process and then became jaded by the obstacles that kept arising in his path. Now that things finally seem official (he is commissioning on May 16th!), we're still afraid to feel TOO happy about everything, lest this all be some joke.
"We’re trying to beat vulnerability to the punch. We don’t want to be blindsided by hurt. We don’t want to be caught off-guard, so we literally practice being devastated or never move from self-elected disappointment." - Brene Brown
The sad thing is....we can never keep ourselves from being hurt or being vulnerable. Even if we control absolutely everything about a situation....perfectly. And protecting ourselves from future disappointment by not feeling joy does not make future disappointments hurt any less. It is also robbing us of our time in the present! I know that practicing joy and gratitude in the moment (and not worrying about if or when things will change) is something that I need to work on.
“I used to think that the best way to go through life was to expect the worst. That way, if it happened, you were prepared, and if it didn’t happen, you were pleasantly surprised. Then I was in a car accident and my wife was killed. Needless to say, expecting the worst didn’t prepare me at all. And worse, I still grieve for all of those wonderful moments we shared that I didn’t fully enjoy.” -a story a man told Brene that she retold in Daring Greatly
I am really happy in my job. I did not actually believe it was possible to enjoy working full-time this much and I did not think it was possible to feel this fulfilled in my work outside of the clinical mental health counseling. My coworkers are amazing, wonderful women who inspire me to be a better professional every day.....AND they're super cool. I feel incredibly blessed to be a part of that team.
I am ecstatic about Mike's upcoming Navy JAG commissioning and I'm so proud of his resilient attitude throughout this entire process. I'm just unbelievably excited for him. He figured out what he wanted to do and set his heart and sights on it. I'm pretty sure if I found out that the thing I'd set my heart on doing had a 4% acceptance rate, I would have adjusted my heart and expectations to something a little less risky. But Mike pursued it wholeheartedly even throughout every moment in the past year in which someone told him it was no longer an option.
What are you grateful for in your life? Is there anything you're afraid of that is keeping you from experiencing joy fully?
Note: I got my "Daring Greatly" book quotes from this other blog post on the same topic. It's also worth a read!
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