Happy Easter to those who celebrate! The Easter season is often referred to as joyful, but what is joy? Is it just a simple emotion? Or is it a habit you can cultivate to increase your wellbeing? Read on to learn more about joy, and how you can get more of it in your life.
Joy; the kind of happiness that doesn’t depend on what happens.
David Steindl-Rast
Three simple pleasures and highlights
Continuing my practice of celebrating the simple things in life, here are three simple pleasures and highlights of the last week. Last week’s simple living theme was laughter, so I chose a couple of things that made me laugh this week.
- My daughter Laura did a live stream of her putting together her new IKEA furniture. The bed turned out to be a lot more challenging than she expected but it was entertaining.
- At our band practice this week, we had a birthday celebration for our drummer. Her sister gave her an inflatable T-Rex suit. Have you ever seen a giant T-Rex playing the drums? After this week, I can say I have and it was hilarious.
- On Thursday, I went in to the office for the first time in over two years. It felt very strange but it was nice to see some of my co-workers again. A few of us went out for a wonderful lunch together.
As an added bonus, the crocuses are now in bloom and the daffodils won’t be far behind. Spring is coming!
This week’s simple living focus: Make joy a habit
We often throw around the word joy frivolously. Decluttering expert Marie Kondo suggests we hold items to decide if they “spark joy” in order to decide if they belong in our lives. But can any object, no matter how expensive or significant, really bring us joy?
What about happiness? Many of us spend our lives searching for happiness, but is that the right goal? In their book Love People, Use Things, Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus consider joy the highest form of wellbeing—beyond pleasure, happiness and contentment.
Surprisingly, there is very little research in this area, but Dr. Pamela Ebstyne-King of the Thrive Center for Human Development has studied it extensively. She shared her findings in an interview with Psychology Today.
In Dr. Ebsytne-King’s research, she observed that happiness is fleeting—it comes and goes. Joy, on the other hand is an enduring, underlying sense of something deeper. It involves our thoughts, feelings, and actions related to what matters most in our lives.
Joy is an enduring, deep delight in what holds the most significance.
Pamela Ebstyne-King
Dr. Ebstyne-King identified three areas that characterize joy. When these three areas overlap, we experience the most joy.
- Self—growing in authenticity and living in our strengths
- Others—growing relationships and contributing to others
- Values—living in alignment with our ethical and spiritual ideals
While joy may be more complex than we thought, Dr. Ebstyne-King suggests it is a habit we can cultivate, even when faced with adversity. Let’s work on bringing more of it to our lives this week.
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Three things to do this week
So, related to the three areas that inform joy—self, others, values—here’s what you can do this week to increase your joy.
Find out where joy resides, and give it a voice beyond singing. For to miss the joy, is to miss all.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Be aware of times when you feel joy
Awareness is a great place to start. As you go about your daily life this week, make a mental note of times when you feel joy. Think about how that feeling connects with your values and the things that matter in your life.
Do something good for others
It’s interesting that so much research on happiness, wellbeing and joy, points out the good feeling you get from doing good for others. This week, make a point of doing something good for someone else—no matter how small.
Cultivate the habit
Finally, take some time every day to reflect and write down your thoughts on what brought you joy that day. Think about which of the three areas it related to. Then, write down ways you can actively pursue more of that in your life.
Once again, Happy Easter to those who celebrate. Today and always, I wish you pleasure, happiness, contentment, but most of all joy!
I’d love to know what you think about Dr. Ebstyne-King’s research. Tell me your thoughts below.
Michelle, I love the distinction between joy and happiness. Truthfully, I never thought about this before but after reading your post, I honestly can see the difference. I feel like I’ve been able to hone joy in my life but happiness is fleeting because it can be fluid, moment to moment, up and down. But I recognize there has been constant joy in my life throughout- mostly the ability to appreciate the little things. Hope you’re enjoying your week! 🙂
It is an interesting distinction, and one that I had never given a lot of thought to either. Being joyful doesn’t mean you have to feel happy all the time. I think it just means you’re aligned with your values and feel good about the important stuff.
That’s a great way to put it!
And what a joy it was indeed to read this blog. Thank you for sharing your pleasant moments as they also brighten up our day – and imagination. I resonate with what these authors and researchers have said about joy. It does feel different from happiness, and it’s more like a filling up from within kind of experience. It’s as if our chests expand when we run on joy. I don’t get the same feeling when I consider happiness. It’s very interesting.
Thanks Vanessa. I like the way you put that – “a filling up from within kind of experience” really sums up the difference between joy and happiness.
Happy Easter Michelle! I really enjoyed reading this. I do agree with everything you mentioned here about joy. Joy is a matter of choice. As for today and for me today one of the things that made me feel joy was reading this post. Thank you for this!
Thank you Eri. That’s kind of you to say. We can choose to be joyful no matter what’s going on around us.
Happy Easter, Michelle! I hope you have a blessed day!
The research is fascinating! I have never looked at joy as separate from happiness. The layers (self, others, and values) seem to bring a whole new perspective. So, in the week ahead I am going to be mindful of these three things in relation to joy. I love learning new things, and you’ve definitely taught me a great way to look for joy! Thank you, Michelle! Cher xoxoxo
Thanks Cher. Happy Easter to you too. It is interesting to think of the differences between joy and happiness. It makes sense when you think about it. You can be joyful without necessarily being happy in the present moment.
Yes, and that is such a fascinating perspective. I really like that!