THE IMPORTANCE OF JOY
22 FEBRUARY 2022 (14 MIN READ)
“Find out where joy resides, and give it a voice far beyond singing. For to miss the joy is to miss it all.” - Robert Louis Stevenson
Recently, in my life, I had a big realization: I have been so concerned with the grind and becoming successful that I completely forgot about enjoying myself from time to time. Any free time I got would entail doing something productive to benefit my career. I even felt deeply guilty if I spent any time doing something unproductive. Within that unproductive mode, my internal bully would start owning my mind and telling me I’ll only deserve joy when my dreams have been accomplished. Eventually, I took a step back and asked myself what the point of all this was. I constantly felt burned out and self-critical. I was becoming a worse romantic partner, family member, and friend. In other words, I was no fun to be around—both for myself and others. I started digging even deeper and pondered whether or not this harsh mentality was even benefitting my career. And upon reflection, I realized this lifestyle choice needed to change, because it was making me infinitely worse at carrying through my purpose. I believe that your purpose is your one true love. And like any relationship, you need some distance to fuel the fire. I had no space from my purpose. It was as if I had become a toxic boyfriend with mommy issues towards my own writing—refusing to leave its side in fear of getting hurt. This anxious attachment made me resent writing more than I loved it, which made me much worse at the actual task. Furthermore, since I always felt burned out, I never got as creative as I would have been with more energy, meaning I needed more breaks to recharge myself. Having understood these negative points, I felt ready to make a big change.
No matter what you are going through, life is an uphill journey with various paths, so you might as well enjoy the ride. Our minds tend to think that once we get to the end of one path, then everything we ever wanted will come our way, but that’s not how life works. Your brain will immediately find the next mountain to climb, only this time you will be stronger from the lessons you learned previously. Thus, rather than thinking, “I will finally enjoy myself once I accomplish X,” one’s mindset should shift to, “I will enjoy myself while I am accomplishing X,” because the latter is much more sustainable throughout one’s life. This mentality allows you to both be joyful and accomplish what you desire, rather than achieve the dream but hate every step of the way. But how exactly can we cultivate that joy? And how does it make us even more likely to accomplish our dreams? This article will answer both questions in depth.
WHAT'S ROBBING YOU OF JOY?
“We repeat what we don’t repair.” - Christine Langley-Obaugh
To figure out how to cultivate more joy, you must understand what took it away from you. I always say that awareness is the first step to create change, because how can you change something about yourself if you don’t even know it exists? Almost always, the main culprit behind a lack of joy is undealt with trauma. Backing this claim up, Stanford neuroscientist, Andrew Huberman, argues that those who have experienced trauma have a much harder time engaging in play, as well as a challenging time achieving neuroplasticity later on in life.¹ Furthermore, those who possess higher levels of adrenaline in the body (or stress) cannot access the circuits of their mind and body that lead to playful behavior.² Unpacking these claims, if you experienced trauma as a child, you were likely to have a hard time playing, and as you grew up, your probability of achieving neuroplasticity became quite low, meaning that you could not access different states of mind very easily, such as experiencing joy. Additionally, most people who suffer from traumatic experiences develop high levels of stress later in life, which damages their ability to engage in play. Why the fuck am I talking about playfulness? I believe the majority of human joy is experienced through engaging in playful behavior. Think of some of your best memories, which usually revolved around doing something engaging with one or more people. You dropped your guard, had a laugh, and truly enjoyed yourself. For me, the bulk of these memories came from playing basketball when I was younger—roasting each other in the locker room, making a great play against a defender, and celebrating a win. Those were some of the happiest moments of my life. However, as I grew up and my ego got big, I stopped engaging in play because it seemed silly, leading me to harden up in the process. Even when I tried doing something playful, it became an exercise of domination—removing any sense of joy. It comes as no surprise that the less I was able to healthily engage in play, the more depressed I became as a result, experiencing close to no joy. But what was stopping me?
In short, unprocessed trauma stemming from when I was a child. I’m not going to get into the painful details, but if I could summarize it: there was a constant need to gain love from my father through achieving excellence and from my mother through any means possible. Also, I had severe asthma as a kid, making me afraid of dying at any second. This combined mindset led me to be in a constant state of stress as a child, as well as continuous heartbreak. In my teenage years, I became blissfully ignorant as to what had happened to me as a kid, which allowed me to experience some level of joy while playing; however, that soon got thrown out the window when the energy of my unprocessed trauma became too much of a burden to ignore. (Unprocessed negative emotions grow larger in the darkness). Although unconscious, because of this heavy load, throughout all of college, every “playful” situation, such as socializing, dating, or playing sports, became an outlet to win my father’s devotion—leading me to treat each situation as life or death, rather than actually enjoying it. This led me to manipulate people to achieve their admiration and doing whatever I could to become top dog. Thus, rather than engaging in play, I was engaging in war. Once I hit rock bottom, with no sign of joy, I thankfully reflected on my life—of what was causing me to be in so much pain. With the help of a therapist, I learned about my childhood traumas and have been on a deep journey ever since to heal from them. And the more I let go of this painful past, the more I am able to genuinely enjoy engaging in play, which brings a lot more joy to my life.
In summary, the thing that is most likely to stop you from engaging in joy is undealt with traumas you experienced as a child or adolescent. This is because it directly prohibits you from engaging in play, which is arguably the biggest producer of joy in one’s life. To overcome this, unpack your traumas and work with a professional to clear them from your present reality. If therapy isn’t your thing, then I highly recommend reading the book, Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child by John Bradshaw. This excellent book helped me a lot in overcoming the trauma from the relationship I had with my parents as a child.
DIFFERENTIATING BETWEEN PLEASURE AND JOY
“Pleasure is always derived from something outside you, whereas joy arises from within.” - Eckhart Tolle
Often, when we are looking to blow off some steam and take a break from the overwhelming chaos of the modern world, we look towards pleasure to take the edge off. Whether it be cracking a cold one, lighting up a blunt, popping a Xanax, or fucking a Tinder match, everyone has their hedonistic coping mechanisms. However, this method of requiring the external world to temporarily solve our internal wounding is a recipe for disaster. Think about the typical mental formula for most young men: I need to get X in order to receive Y. For instance, “I need to get a million dollars to receive admiration from the world,” or “I need to get 100k followers to receive an onslaught of female attention.” The list goes on and on, but let’s break this down. By following this equation, one is expecting the outside world to hand them a feeling they cannot find in themselves. So, they will do whatever the fuck it takes to get the so called “thing” that can give them the feeling they want so badly. But this can take years and years of genuine misery before you get any results. Thus, why not feel the feeling you are chasing while you’re working towards your dreams? And I believe that no matter where we’re at in life, we just want to feel a prevalence of joy. At its core, joy is symbolic of feeling deep gratitude for everything that is occurring at the present moment, as if life finally feels like it's not only worth living but worth cherishing and nurturing too. Due to this awesome way of viewing life from feeling joy, experiencing joy is what one needs to work on cultivating in the present moment, while they work on accomplishing their dreams at the same time. This way, YOU become the priority, not the thing you are chasing. And you will actually enjoy the process of life, rather than just hating yourself until you get the result.
Joy is a much more intrinsically cultivated feeling than pleasure. It doesn’t require nearly as much input from the external world; it kind of just arises on its own. This is why one doesn’t really chase joy, because there’s nothing “out there” to run towards. For instance, you suddenly spot a beautiful orchid and feel enamored by it in the present moment, or you see a couple holding hands and feel your heart light up. Let’s compare this to chasing a hot guy/girl for feeling sexual pleasure, as well as for feeling seen and accepted for all that you are. This person, or the external object, becomes an idea of yourself that you are chasing, because you cannot find it in yourself. For instance, trying to find a confident version of self through potentially attracting a sexy romantic partner. By doing this, not only do you waste a whole lot of fucking time, but you are reinforcing the notion that YOU are not good enough and that YOU need something outside of yourself to fix you. On the other hand, joy surfaces when you are in complete acceptance of yourself and the moment you are currently in; it’s almost as if it’s a switch one can learn to turn on in any situation. Joy does not take you away from yourself like pleasure does, and that’s why it’s worth prioritizing over pleasure. So, next time you need a break from a tough day, instead of sparking a joint and turning on PornHub—both external interventions to solve internal wounding—try engaging in a deep meditation and going for a walk in nature, which will allow you to cultivate joy from the inside out. Although this may sound pretentious, you will gain a lot more respect and love for yourself by allowing yourself to see that you are enough, and that you do not need anything outside of yourself to make you feel the way you want to feel.
All in all, ask yourself, “Am I doing this for pleasure? Or am I doing this for joy?” Because the former usually stems from requiring something outside of yourself to fix you, while the latter more so involves the individual cultivating a positive feeling from inside themselves, without searching for a replacement.
SHADOW BALANCE
“Don’t let the shadows of yesterday spoil the sunshine of tomorrow.” - Unknown
Doing the inner work is a serious fucking challenge, especially if you are digging deep into your shadows. This process of investigating your shadows is known as “shadow work,” which I like to define as: the process of becoming aware of the unconscious mechanisms that negatively influence your behavior, as well as integrating the newfound knowledge into your psyche, becoming one with your darkness in the process. In action, this looks like becoming aware of unprocessed, painful traumas that have been driving your behavior without your knowledge, meaning that one has to relive their painful past and try their best to move through it. Although this process is necessary to make inner progress, too much of it can lead one to live under a lens of pure darkness. In my experience, when I first started doing shadow work, I became obsessed with mastering all my traumas, leading me to be in constant pain from my past. Even though I was learning a lot about myself and leaking less pain onto others, I was in a constant state of darkness, searching for any remnant of light. I still had not discovered the power of balancing shadow work with light, in the form of joy (or play). One day, right after moving through some grief from my childhood, my friend called and asked to play some basketball. Still stuck in this shadow state, I reluctantly said yes, but after playing for a couple of hours, I felt incredible. I relayed this information back to my mentor, and he told me all about the yin-yang, specifically how it relates to shadow work. He taught me about the importance of balance, stating that however deep you go into your shadow, you immediately have to balance that with an equal depth of joy, or else the scale tips and you will find yourself in a dominant shadow state.
Thus, after experiencing the fruits of this strategy and learning the philosophy behind it, I started to do that balancing act whenever I entered a shadow state. To find activities that would bring me enjoyment, I asked myself: what did I love to do as a kid? And after some failed experiments, I landed on sports, playing cards, dancing, freestyle rapping, and dabbling in video games. So, whenever I was doing deep shadow work, I would quickly do one of these activities when the majority of my negative emotions had been released. This balancing act allowed me to feel much more joy, instead of just constant pain. Other than feeling less darkness, two other important reasons exist for why we must balance shadow with light: integration and gratitude.
Too often when we start doing the inner work, we become obsessed with being as aware of our pain as we possibly can; however, while this is not exactly a bad thing, we forget to leave room to integrate new pieces of awareness. By giving ourselves space to experience joy in between shadow work, we allow ourselves to integrate that new knowledge into our minds, rather than running straight to the next piece of pain holding us back. It’s as if you are allowing yourself to take one test a week, versus three a day. Next, in terms of gratitude, when we tap into painful parts of ourselves stemming from previous trauma, we are re-experiencing a moment where we did not want to be present in reality, suggesting that part of ourselves wanted to die in that moment. To not step into that state of mind again for too long, one must reintegrate their love for life back into the picture. This is where joy comes in, which was previously defined as feeling deep gratitude for everything that is occurring at the present moment. By stepping into a place of joy, you are reigniting that love for life that you once lost.
BRAIN ENHANCEMENT
Not only does joy feel amazing and restore light in the body, but it’s excellent for your brain development too, specifically in the form of play. When we engage in play, we are exploring different mental probabilities that we would not normally access in our minds. For example, playful if-then statements are far different from sorrowful if-then statements. The former could look something like, “If I play this UNO +4 card, then Jimmy would get slightly annoyed, but also laugh really hard at the same time.” However, the latter would appear as, “If my friends keep refusing to hang out with me, then I am a loser and a failure.” Playful contingencies break us out of our depressive spirals and throw us into an unknown territory that is not so scary. In other words, it creates a low-stakes environment to explore the good in ourselves that we have not discovered yet. This smooth transition to access joyful parts of ourselves increases something called prefrontal cortical plasticity.³ In non-nerd terms, this means that by engaging in play, one is strengthening their ability to quickly interchange between different patterns of reasoning and personality expression. Going further, this entails quickly catching a depressive mental loop and switching to a more joyful one, or showcasing a more playful personality in social situations, rather than remaining quiet and mopey. This skill is massively useful in life, and in my experience, has helped heal my depressive tendencies.
