Do you secretly find it hard to feel and/or express joy in your personal life? Are you in a relationship with a joy killer? If you do, then you're not alone!
In the past months, we have discovered that Assael has trouble expressing joy (can you say, a pessimist?), while for Galit joy is a natural and accessible resource (optimist, or as we call her a unicorn).
This sent Assael to family therapy with his parents to understand the source of this difficulty - and he came back with some shocking discoveries. Since then we have been talking about it with our clients, only to discover that many people find it hard to recognize and express joy for a myriad of reasons.
In this talk, we share what we discovered about joy from our marriage and the clinic. We share both the pessimist and optimist tips on how to recognize and express joy in your life.
You know, in our wedding video, there's this short snippet of a scene where I'm kind of holding the microphone and we're at the bar. And I say, I'm so happy. Are you happy? And do you remember what you said to me?
Speaker 2:
I'm happy cuz you're happy. Yeah.
Speaker 1:
And at the time I remember thinking like, oh, that's so sweet. That's so cute. So loving. Um, but actually with time and, and especially recently, it's kind of, it kind of freaks me out a little bit because I, I don't wanna be responsible for your joy and I don't wanna your joy to be dependent on me. And it's something that's we've really been talking about and it's come up most recent around our move from Jerusalem to faba where we realized that I was very verbal about my , um , happiness and joy of moving and was having a really hard time expressing
Speaker 2:
It . And that's where we came up with this idea that joy is a verb, not just a , now
Speaker 3:
You are listening to the potential state podcast with your host Gallet and Dr . Ru Romanelli .
Speaker 2:
Hi, my name's Dr . Romanelli and I'm Romanelli
Speaker 1:
And this is the
Speaker 2:
Potential state. So if we're talking about joy is a verb, not amount . So as reaching Fs , Saba, I'm not verbalizing joy. And that sends me off to a journey cuz I always thought it was very joyful. And then I realized that also in the family, in my house growing up, we didn't really ver and then family therapy with my parents when I opened up what came up with the message was that joy is dangerous. Joy can either leave you lead you to some mania or these, these , um, irresponsible decisions. Or it could just be something that's I don't know , that's just not realistic. Mm . And then realizing that these are the core beliefs that I've inherited, sent me to ask a lot of other clients, like what is joy for you? Mm fascinating. And a lot of them were like, joy is an illusion. Somebody said to me, it's not really real. Or joy is you can't reach it. Or joy is sadness. And then I , this woman I worked with when she said joy is being self . Wow. And that's why she can never feel a joy. Mm . And then looking back, reflecting on my parents, I realized I never really saw my mom happy and joyous and relaxed. Wow. And my dad was only when was only really joyful when he was on stage singing. Mm wow. Performing, performing. Right. Mm . So that sent me to think of, of , for all these other people. And if you're , um, listening to this talk, like if you have an issue with joy, if it doesn't come to you , so naturally it comes to you, then, then here are some stuff that we've been experiment that I've been experimenting with . Experimenting with. The first thing is to verbalize it, acknowledge that at these little moments and just say it, say it out loud, even if it's weird for you for some people like you, it's natural. But for me, it's not so natural to say it and just say , I am happy right now. This is happy. This is crazy. And then expand it . Yes. And yourself, even if it's a little bit, cause it's not natural for you to say, but say it open. It's so important. Cuz if you don't, your kids are gonna feel that joy is wrong and they're not worthy to feel joy or
Speaker 1:
They're not. There's no , there isn't permission to feel joy. Right. Like I think, I think that's, what's so important about expressing it and verbalizing it is that it's allow yourself to say it, to feel it, to acknowledge it. Right. Like give yourself permission to be in this glorious, wonderful moment of joy. And I know that sometimes it's, it's um, like bene brown talks a lot about how, when we're in these joyful moments, we feel also very vulnerable and we kind of snap into catastrophic thinking, right? Like when we're looking at our children sleeping and we're like, oh, they're so precious and everything so great right now. And then we like get stunned by, oh my God . Something bad is gonna happen. So I think that kind of , we all feel those moments of like, but we are worthy to feel, to feel joy and that by expressing it and verbalizing and acknowledging it, we're allowing ourselves to be in those moments. And even if they, we at least kind of are able to hold onto them and anchor them. And
Speaker 2:
You , you said before that joy there's no , it's like a sliver . It's like little joyous moments. Yeah . Cause stop thinking of joy is like they're to achieve joy or
Speaker 1:
Real . And then you'll be in a state of joy. No. It's like joy is in tiny little moments that you collect
Speaker 2:
Almost like in joy, yourself , enjoying and joining . So for people, if you're more like, like me and that is your perception to start enjoying verb it up. Don't no it, yeah. And
Speaker 1:
I also think like , don't expect to have these huge long lasting episodes of joy because I think that's also a it's I think stressful and B, well , it's harder to attain. And I think that, you know, you can, you can feel massive joy in really small moments. Like I was thinking about, you know, this evening we played cards with the kids on the rug was the whole time fun. No, they were bickering. They were arguing. They were, but there were some moments where there was, you know, a nice flow and everybody was laughing. And so, you know, anchor those small moments.
Speaker 2:
It's like, I think about our daughter LA who's sick so she can eat something. And she she's so good at expressing enjoying. Yeah. So if you need to take inspiration from kids around you or your own kids. Yeah.
Speaker 1:
And also it's contagious. Yeah. So I think that once you allow yourself, then it, it will trickle to your close, nearest and dearest. Yeah. And you're also kind of modeling. So you're also modeling to your kids or to your siblings or to your parents that like I'm in joy right now. This is what it looks like for me. And kind of realizing that a joy looks differently for everybody by , by you giving permission, you're modeling for other people. If you also be
Speaker 2:
Joy . Cause if you can express joy, if you don't. So then basically people around you are always feeling guilty. And if you wanna relieve guilt from the PE from your life and from other people, you must express joy.
Speaker 1:
Well, we're not responsible for other people's feelings, but right.
Speaker 2:
But we do wanna , we surely don't wanna burden them with the sense that joy is wrong.
Speaker 1:
Sure.
Speaker 2:
That's how I like you Goleta green with what I'm saying. So this was go Romanelli ,
Speaker 1:
Feel joy. Even if the people around you not feeling joyful, you are allowed to feel joy and know that it is contagious and that when they see you shining and feeling joyful, they will know that they are in an environment where they can also bring their joy. I think that's the bottom line.
Speaker 2:
Okay .
Speaker 1:
That's how we like you , Dr .
Speaker 2:
We're the potential state. We'll see you next day .
Speaker 3:
You've been listening to the potential state podcast for more information, visit a set potential state.com. Thanks for listening.