What brings you JOY? Close your eyes for a moment and think of a time that you felt an irrepressible smile spread across your face. The inner twinkle inside of you lights up. Is it a person? A place? Is it your children when they are playing together and giggling? Or maybe they are just growing into young adults who are sharing details of their lives with you? Is it a smell that reminds you of your Mimi’s thoughtfully prepared birthday dinners? Is it the sound of a song that takes you back to your childhood?
Over the years, there has been a lot of talk about “sparks of JOY.” Marie Kondo talked about it as a way to clear clutter. Gretchen Rubin wrote books about her “happiness project” and how it changed her life. Pharrell wrote the poppiest of all pop songs about how he’s HAPPY. There’s even a documentary called “Happy” that I would encourage you to watch – about the psychological implications of happiness, the statistics of the world’s happiest people, and activities that raise serotonin.
So… What brings YOU joy? It’s a simple enough question, but one that doesn’t get nearly enough love. Something happens to us as adults – we become more pragmatic, more realistic, more serious – we somehow let joy slip to the background, mistaking it as an emotion that is considered naive or childish. Or sometimes we are made to feel that our joy IS childish, likely by those who lack a little sunshine themselves. We often prioritize creating joy for others over ourselves, which one could argue brings its own sort of happiness, but not without sacrifice. How do we make room for more of it in our lives, despite the sometimes arduous task of adulting? I say MORE JOY FOR ALL!
Name your joy and know what makes you happy!
So what activates that feeling of calm and serenity for you – your shoulders may drop, you may take a deep breath, letting out a little sigh, with a smile spreading across your face? Take a moment to think about what people, activities, environments, smells, sounds bring that lightness to you? Where do you feel safest and most open? What about this makes you happy? And how can you bring more of it into your life?
I have done a lot of reflecting about happiness over the years, perhaps more than your average person. And as the name of this website might suggest, I am genuinely a happy person! The name “Happy Dyan” started as a tongue in cheek joke – I don’t recall if it was something someone called me once, and it stuck? Or if it popped into my head when creating my first Yahoo email account in 1997. Either way, it is indicative of my overall optimism and general attitude.
Now, am I always happy?? HECK NO! Lol! I am human and have had my fair share of struggles and personal challenges – and I have trudged through some of those times with less acceptance and grace than other times. However, I uphold the Happy Dyan moniker with pride and I try to actively focus on things that bring me joy.
I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to say that I feel a deep sense of contentment daily with my home and my dog (she’ll get her own post at some point 🥰) – beyond that, I try to take the time to notice the little things that bring a smile to my face. Here is a (very) abridged happiness list:
- Activities – travel, laughing, photography
- Places – my home, Disney, Fenway park, the ocean, Paris, national parks!
- Coco, my 4 year old mini-goldendoodle
- Nature – sunshine, golden hour, sunsets, shooting stars, the night sky
- Sounds – babies giggling, champagne popping
- Smells – lilacs, fresh baked bread!
- Puppy videos (all day, every day!)
- HUGS
If the subject of joy / happiness interests you, I have three recommendations:
- The Happiness Project – I read this book by Gretchen Rubin years ago – I still have my dog eared copy, exploding with sticky notes jumping off pages and handwritten notes. It was written as one woman’s journey to finding and creating more happiness in her life. When I read it, I started to look objectively at the things that made me happy, and I then wrote them all down. It was a fun exercise and I would encourage you all to do this too! It turns out that my list is pretty long and even though some of my things are pretty mundane, the act of writing it all down had a compounding effect and brought even more joy! Maybe it’s the teacher in me, but physically handwriting anything cements itself deeper within.
- Happy, a documentary – My second recommendation is for a doc called “Happy” which was released in 2011 (available on YouTube or Amazon Prime). It looks more at the “science” of being happy – which countries are happiest, whether money can buy happiness (spoiler: it doesn’t!), and the basic neuroscience behind happiness and its key hormones, serotonin and dopamine. I have shown this to students in my film course to great success, and we all come up with our lists of what brings us joy. Students are often surprised to find that their preconceived notions of who are happiest (or conversely, the unhappiest) are challenged.
- “The Science of Well-Being” is a course offered at Yale University with Dr Laurie Santos, who also has a podcast called The Happiness Lab. This course became the university’s most popular class in over 300 years, when it debuted in 2018 and it is now free online for anyone to take 🙂 Not surprisingly, this course skyrocketed during the 2020 pandemic and over 3.7 million people have now participated in it!
Leave a comment below if you would like to share what brings YOU joy!! Have a wonderful day doing more of what makes you smile 🤗
Xo Dyan ✨
