[Zoom Meeting] OCPD & Cultivating Joy 😄

Atlas of the Heart – Brené Brown

Places We Go When Life Is Good

(Joy, Happiness, Calm, Contentment, Gratitude, Foreboding Joy, Relief, Tranquility)

Joy and happiness are two separate emotions. We need both, but how we experience them and how they affect us are different.

Joy is sudden, unexpected, short-lasting, and high-intensity. It’s characterized by a connection with others, or with God, nature, or the universe. Joy expands our thinking and attention, and it fills us with a sense of freedom and abandon.

Happiness is stable, longer-lasting, and normally the result of effort. It’s lower in intensity than joy, and more self-focused. With happiness, we feel a sense of being in control. Unlike joy, which is more internal, happiness seems more external and circumstantial.

In The Gifts of Imperfection, I quote Anne Robertson, a theologian and writer, on the difference between joy and happiness:

She explains that the Greek word for happiness is Makarios, which was used to describe the freedom of the rich from normal cares and worries, or to describe a person who received some form of good fortune, such as money or health. Robertson compares this to the Greek word for joy, which is chairo. Chairo was described by the ancient Greeks as the “culmination of being” and the “good mood of the soul.” Robertson writes, “Chairo is something, the ancient Greeks tell us, that is found only in God and comes with virtue and wisdom. It isn’t a beginner’s virtue; it comes as the culmination. They say its opposite is not sadness, but fear.”

Joy

I love thinking of joy as “the good mood of the soul.” There is definitely something soulful about joy. Based on our research, I define joy as an intense feeling of deep spiritual connection, pleasure, and appreciation.

Researcher Matthew Kuan Johnson explains that people find experiences of joy difficult to articulate. He hypothesizes that the very nature of joy pushes the boundaries of our ability to communicate about lived experience via spoken language. He also suggests that because language can shape lived experience, cultures that have more words to describe the emotion of joy may also experience joy more richly.

Johnson shares that while experiencing joy, we don’t lose ourselves, we become more truly ourselves. He suggests that with joy, colors seem brighter, physical movements feel freer and easier, and smiling happens involuntarily. Some researchers even describe spontaneous weeping as part of the overwhelming experience of joy.

For me personally, one of the greatest lessons I’ve learned from two decades of research has been understanding the relationship between joy and gratitude. Researchers describe the relationship between joy and gratitude as an “intriguing upward spiral.” I also love this term—such a great antidote to the downward spirals that we always hear about and, unfortunately, sometimes experience.

The intriguing upward spiral goes like this:
– Trait gratitude predicts greater future experiences of in-the-moment joy.
– Trait joy predicts greater future experiences of in-the-moment gratitude.
– And dispositional or situational joy predicts greater future subjective well-being.
– It all just spirals up.

Happiness

Looking at happiness as a trait, researchers found that people’s “usual” level of happiness is fairly stable and highly based on hereditary factors, and that for most people, the level could be described as being on the happy side of neutral. (Happy Side of Neutral is yet another great band name.)

Looking at the data we’ve collected, I would define the state of happiness as feeling pleasure often related to the immediate environment or current circumstances.

We need happy moments and happiness in our lives; however, I’m growing more convinced that the pursuit of happiness may get in the way of deeper, more meaningful experiences like joy and gratitude. I know, from the research and my experiences, that when it comes to parenting, what makes children happy in the moment is not always what leads them to developing deeper joy, grounded confidence, and meaningful connection.