Such a thought provoking post, Brooke! 😀 It reminded me of Brene Brown's book Atlas of the Heart where she defines joy as "an intense feeling of deep spiritual connection, pleasure and appreciation". She states that happiness is "feeling pleasure often related to the immediate environment of current circumstances". I think you hit the nail on the head for me when you say it is "deeply rooted in gratitude and connection". Perhaps so deeply rooted and internal that it is hard to define in a tangible way.
I hope it is ok to also share this poem from Donna Ashworth which 'coincidently' arrived in my inbox 5 hours before your post!
Oh Carolyn, this is such a beautiful response and that poem! It’s stunning. Thank you for sharing it 💚
Reading through everyone’s comments here, I really do think that joy is ever-changing, deeply felt and unique to each of us, with the common thread being noticing. Learning to see joy, to see happiness, is to learn how to be open to it. I love that so much and feel even more excited to play around with how to find more of it. How cool!!
Thanks for your poem Carolyn. You inspired me to check the cluster in Atlas of the Heart for Places We Go When Life Is Good: joy, happiness, calm, contentment, gratitude, foreboding joy, relief & tranquility. What a woman & research team!
I have shifted away from "happy". For some reason it feels small and fleeting. "Joy" feels expansive and limitless. It feels deep and wise. Maybe it has something to do with my age, now that I am on the other side of 50. I want a richer, more meaninful life that is made up of little moments of joy.
I am excited to explore this with you and the group.
It’s fascinating to see how differently we all define happiness and joy, and how much I think we’re all standing on common ground while doing so. (Language feels like a blunt tool to try and communicate something so intangible). I feel similarly in that I’m no longer as interested in chasing the external satisfactions (which I had always defined as happiness) and am looking more to an even-keeled sense of contentment, dotted with as much joy (internal) as I can muster. I do think that has shifted and will keep shifting as I get older, and have lived more years where I realise the peace to be found away from that external kind of striving. But man, I am finding this so so interesting!! 💚
Maybe it is the '50 thing' because I feel exactly the same Blythe! Happiness isn't a word that I use very often, if at all. I think my aim is more now for peace and contentment interspersed with moments of joy which I grasp and savour with both hands.
I feel a difference between joy and happiness. My take: Happiness is a state of wellbeing, and probably includes some feelings of contentment. Joy is something else - and yes, it may be present during times of hardship. I felt joy when walking through a fresh snowfall in the woods with a friend. Fluffy snow covered the pine branches and blanketed the banks of the streams- magical scenes all around us. We were the first humans to lay tracks on the trail that day. At one point, we stepped off the path and laid down in the snow on our backs. Being still and looking up through the snow-covered branches of the trees towards the morning sky, we felt…JOY!
You’ve painted such a vivid, joyful picture Ellen - I love this! I definitely think there’s something in this search for a definition that revolves around noticing and being open too. You were in that moment, open to joy, paying attention to it. How beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing 💚
YES! I love stripping it down to something so simple and tangible, especially because I’m finding it hard to grasp a wordy definition that takes in all the different ideas of joy. (I mean, what a problem to have, right?) 💚
I think I heard the difference for the first time in your podcast with Beth Kempton. I never thought about it before so it had a profound impact on me. (It could be one of your other podcasts though).
For me happiness is more a longer state of contentment, gratitude and living your values. Joy is more of a fleating experience. Brene Brown explains the image as an chain of flickering lights. The lights are joy and happiness is the cord.
A chain of flickering lights - that’s a really beautiful way of picturing it! And I think about that conversation I had with Beth so often. It was such a juicy one! 💚
I personally define happiness as a feeling more on the surface. In the middle of grief, for example, it is possible to have moments of happiness if someone makes you laugh, but grief is behind the happiness. Joy is a deeper feeling, a feeling rooted in gratitude.
But when I use google translate to translate the two, joy and happiness, into my first language, I'm not so sure anymore, haha! Emotions and feelings can be both tricky and fascinating at the same time.
Thank you for providing the audioversion of these letters, I truly enjoy them. Sometimes I read along with you, and sometimes I just sit back and listen. Other times I prefer to read myself. It's good to have the choice, so thank you.
Oh, and if you don't mind me asking, what's your new novel about? :)
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head Elisabeth. Language makes defining these kinds of feelings/emotions really hard! I wish we could communicate in feelings sometimes, because I think it would show us how often we’re talking about the same things, only using different words. 😆
And I’m so glad you like the audio versions. It’s nice to sit at my desk and imagine I’m talking to you. It feel more like we’re having a chat over a cup of tea.
My novel is a middle-grade fantasy that’s really only starting to take proper shape now. But it has lots of nature and magic and courageous kids in it. Hopefully one day I’ll be able to share the finished thing with you! 💚
Loved this post Brooke, plus everyone's comments. In Vedic philosophy they use the sanskrit term Sat-Chit-Ananda, which translates to truth-consciousness-bliss, and is the experience of unity or pure existence. Sometimes glimpsed or felt during meditation or when noticing moments of joy, peace or connection : )
In the reading I’ve done on joy a lot of researchers mention a similar experience to this too, and suggest that what they define as joy can be found in fleeting moments during meditation or similarly mindful activities. Thank you for sharing the sanskrit phrase - the idea of pure existence (which maybe could be described as simply being?) feels really close to the peace and contentment that I sometimes glimpse in joy. 💚
That’s so interesting Natalie. I have started to notice some moments, very brief, when there is a well of emotion in me and I could cry. Not in a sad way but more joy/peace/connection…hard to describe but I resonate with the philosophy you share. I have felt it in meditation, in nature and once sitting on my yoga mat quietly waiting for class to start! It is a beautiful feeling…
Oh I love all these comments 🥰 joy to me is often fleeting but can last and last in our memories. Gratitude, contentment, family, friends and nature are often my joy filled moments.
I’m loving them too Lynette! And what a beautiful list of joy-bringers you’ve given. Like you, I find those moments living on inside me for long after they’re over. 💚
I feel like happiness is a more general feeling of wellbeing whereas joy is a more intense moment or experience - like those you mentioned - and that joy does indeed 'leave a trail of luminescence in it's wake' - so beautifully expressed! I think we can easily identify those moments of joy in our lives - even when they are fleeting.
It’s so interesting isn’t it, the way we each categorise them in slightly different (but ultimately quite similar) ways. And I’ve also found a lot of happiness in simply noticing how long those fleeting moments of delight can last in my body. I can still feel some of them from years ago. That by itself makes me happy!! 😆💚
I think joy might be the noticing of happiness. The noticing of contentment, awe and connection. The feeling of warmth. And I so love what you say about it leaving a trail, staying around for a while after. I definitely see that 🤍
I love that..."joy might be the noticing of happiness". I do think that is an understanding of joy that resonates with me. When you are mindfully aware of that inner feeling...
I really love this idea, of joy being the noticing of happiness. Noticing, learning, becoming more aware of those moments is definitely something I want to try to do more of as I keep exploring joy. It feels practical and slow and accessible, which I love! 💚
Brooke, I teared-up when you recounted that your daughter put her head on your shoulder during that pivotal scene in ‘Barbie’. 🥹 Joy indeed.
I frequently find joy and happiness with my dog, Wilbur. Just this morning, I thought how happy I feel when he comes to sit next to me on the couch. (He has several dog beds, and the human bed, as well as the couch; hence it makes me happy when he chooses to sit right next to me.) Plus, I felt absolute joy when I was lying next to him on the bed, patting him, and watching him snooze.
Towards the end of last year I made a ‘saved’ folder on instagram called “joy” where I save posts that I find joyful. It’s a wonderful way of not only noting joy during time I spend scrolling, but it’s so wonderfully joyful to go back and look at the posts as a group, from time to time.
I love how you're using IG as a tool for building space for joy! And I love thinking of your Wilbur choosing to snooze next to you. Being chosen like that really does feel joyful doesn't it?
Oh, and I think that scene in Barbie will always bring me undone now. For the scene itself, and also for what it brings to mind 💚💚
I love this idea about your Instagram. I've got a highlight entitled "Note To Self" which is similar, and my highlights bring me joy, but to have one simply focused on "joy" is a great idea!🙂
I love your definitions of both Brooke! ‘Happiness as a training ground for joy’ is a particularly delightful take! (Where does delight sit in relation to these other two I wonder?)
That’s such a good question Philippa. Maybe delight can be a vehicle for both joy and happiness? One branch in the tree of joy? You’ve given me something to ponder over the weekend that’s for sure! 💚
Hi Brooke. In your quest for defining joy, have you come across I grid Fetell Lee, who wrote a book about it, did a TED talk and has an amazing website - The Aesthetics of Joy! If not, I highly recommend. 👀🎈
I'm so glad Marnie! There's something really physical for me when I feel joy, a sensation that I can't remember feeling any other time. It's really cool to know that came through 💚
I enjoyed this post SO MUCH Brooke!! It was a pleasure to read and I like the way it made me consider the terms. I have to say that "So, colour me bemused." made me laugh out loud in a public space 😆
Best best best of luck with your surgery. I look forward to hearing that it went super well 🥰
This is so timely, Brooke - I am having to do some hard reflecting on big life changes and making permanent space for joy moving forward around those changes has been very much on my mind (your concept of tilting rather than worklife 'balance' has been so helpful in this respect!). Happiness to me is a quieter, calmer feeling, overlapping strongly with contentment - a good cup of tea in the sunshine, a catch up with a friend. Joy is a bit brighter, and often more spontaneous, maybe - a delighted chortle or full on snortlaugh at a piece of silliness sent by a friend; riding my bike home at midnight on empty back streets; like you, I enjoy belting out a song while driving too. Thankyou for sharing :)
Such a thought provoking post, Brooke! 😀 It reminded me of Brene Brown's book Atlas of the Heart where she defines joy as "an intense feeling of deep spiritual connection, pleasure and appreciation". She states that happiness is "feeling pleasure often related to the immediate environment of current circumstances". I think you hit the nail on the head for me when you say it is "deeply rooted in gratitude and connection". Perhaps so deeply rooted and internal that it is hard to define in a tangible way.
I hope it is ok to also share this poem from Donna Ashworth which 'coincidently' arrived in my inbox 5 hours before your post!
JOY CHOSE YOU
Joy does not arrive with a fanfare
on a red carpet strewn
with the flowers of a perfect life
joy sneaks in
as you pour a cup of coffee
watching the sunlight
hit your favourite tree, just right
and you usher joy away
because you are not ready for her
your house is not as it should be
for such a distinguished guest
but joy cares nothing for your messy home
or your bank-balance, or your waistline, you see
joy is supposed to slither through
the cracks of your imperfect life
that's how joy works
you cannot truly invite her
you can only be ready when she appears
and hug her with meaning
because in this very moment
joy chose you
Oh Carolyn, this is such a beautiful response and that poem! It’s stunning. Thank you for sharing it 💚
Reading through everyone’s comments here, I really do think that joy is ever-changing, deeply felt and unique to each of us, with the common thread being noticing. Learning to see joy, to see happiness, is to learn how to be open to it. I love that so much and feel even more excited to play around with how to find more of it. How cool!!
Thanks for your poem Carolyn. You inspired me to check the cluster in Atlas of the Heart for Places We Go When Life Is Good: joy, happiness, calm, contentment, gratitude, foreboding joy, relief & tranquility. What a woman & research team!
I love this Natalie! I actually haven’t read Alta’s of the Heart. This thread has put it on my TBR pile!!
She is amazing and that book is beautiful 🥰
This is a wonderful description of how I connec to joy these days. Thank you for sharing.
Love your Joy poem....soooo true!
I have shifted away from "happy". For some reason it feels small and fleeting. "Joy" feels expansive and limitless. It feels deep and wise. Maybe it has something to do with my age, now that I am on the other side of 50. I want a richer, more meaninful life that is made up of little moments of joy.
I am excited to explore this with you and the group.
It’s fascinating to see how differently we all define happiness and joy, and how much I think we’re all standing on common ground while doing so. (Language feels like a blunt tool to try and communicate something so intangible). I feel similarly in that I’m no longer as interested in chasing the external satisfactions (which I had always defined as happiness) and am looking more to an even-keeled sense of contentment, dotted with as much joy (internal) as I can muster. I do think that has shifted and will keep shifting as I get older, and have lived more years where I realise the peace to be found away from that external kind of striving. But man, I am finding this so so interesting!! 💚
Maybe it is the '50 thing' because I feel exactly the same Blythe! Happiness isn't a word that I use very often, if at all. I think my aim is more now for peace and contentment interspersed with moments of joy which I grasp and savour with both hands.
Well said
I feel a difference between joy and happiness. My take: Happiness is a state of wellbeing, and probably includes some feelings of contentment. Joy is something else - and yes, it may be present during times of hardship. I felt joy when walking through a fresh snowfall in the woods with a friend. Fluffy snow covered the pine branches and blanketed the banks of the streams- magical scenes all around us. We were the first humans to lay tracks on the trail that day. At one point, we stepped off the path and laid down in the snow on our backs. Being still and looking up through the snow-covered branches of the trees towards the morning sky, we felt…JOY!
You’ve painted such a vivid, joyful picture Ellen - I love this! I definitely think there’s something in this search for a definition that revolves around noticing and being open too. You were in that moment, open to joy, paying attention to it. How beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing 💚
That definitely sounds like a joyful experience, Ellen. I haven’t seen snow in a very long time. What I remember is the silence that comes with it.
Not super sure but I feel like Joy involves a cool breeze
YES! I love stripping it down to something so simple and tangible, especially because I’m finding it hard to grasp a wordy definition that takes in all the different ideas of joy. (I mean, what a problem to have, right?) 💚
I think I heard the difference for the first time in your podcast with Beth Kempton. I never thought about it before so it had a profound impact on me. (It could be one of your other podcasts though).
For me happiness is more a longer state of contentment, gratitude and living your values. Joy is more of a fleating experience. Brene Brown explains the image as an chain of flickering lights. The lights are joy and happiness is the cord.
A chain of flickering lights - that’s a really beautiful way of picturing it! And I think about that conversation I had with Beth so often. It was such a juicy one! 💚
I personally define happiness as a feeling more on the surface. In the middle of grief, for example, it is possible to have moments of happiness if someone makes you laugh, but grief is behind the happiness. Joy is a deeper feeling, a feeling rooted in gratitude.
But when I use google translate to translate the two, joy and happiness, into my first language, I'm not so sure anymore, haha! Emotions and feelings can be both tricky and fascinating at the same time.
Thank you for providing the audioversion of these letters, I truly enjoy them. Sometimes I read along with you, and sometimes I just sit back and listen. Other times I prefer to read myself. It's good to have the choice, so thank you.
Oh, and if you don't mind me asking, what's your new novel about? :)
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head Elisabeth. Language makes defining these kinds of feelings/emotions really hard! I wish we could communicate in feelings sometimes, because I think it would show us how often we’re talking about the same things, only using different words. 😆
And I’m so glad you like the audio versions. It’s nice to sit at my desk and imagine I’m talking to you. It feel more like we’re having a chat over a cup of tea.
My novel is a middle-grade fantasy that’s really only starting to take proper shape now. But it has lots of nature and magic and courageous kids in it. Hopefully one day I’ll be able to share the finished thing with you! 💚
Loved this post Brooke, plus everyone's comments. In Vedic philosophy they use the sanskrit term Sat-Chit-Ananda, which translates to truth-consciousness-bliss, and is the experience of unity or pure existence. Sometimes glimpsed or felt during meditation or when noticing moments of joy, peace or connection : )
In the reading I’ve done on joy a lot of researchers mention a similar experience to this too, and suggest that what they define as joy can be found in fleeting moments during meditation or similarly mindful activities. Thank you for sharing the sanskrit phrase - the idea of pure existence (which maybe could be described as simply being?) feels really close to the peace and contentment that I sometimes glimpse in joy. 💚
That’s so interesting Natalie. I have started to notice some moments, very brief, when there is a well of emotion in me and I could cry. Not in a sad way but more joy/peace/connection…hard to describe but I resonate with the philosophy you share. I have felt it in meditation, in nature and once sitting on my yoga mat quietly waiting for class to start! It is a beautiful feeling…
That's lovely! Interesting that joy is found in peace &/or presence, and can be a range of emotions.
Ooh, that’s something new to me Natalie - that joy can find its place in a range of emotions. I like that distinction a lot! 💚
Oh I love all these comments 🥰 joy to me is often fleeting but can last and last in our memories. Gratitude, contentment, family, friends and nature are often my joy filled moments.
I’m loving them too Lynette! And what a beautiful list of joy-bringers you’ve given. Like you, I find those moments living on inside me for long after they’re over. 💚
I feel like happiness is a more general feeling of wellbeing whereas joy is a more intense moment or experience - like those you mentioned - and that joy does indeed 'leave a trail of luminescence in it's wake' - so beautifully expressed! I think we can easily identify those moments of joy in our lives - even when they are fleeting.
It’s so interesting isn’t it, the way we each categorise them in slightly different (but ultimately quite similar) ways. And I’ve also found a lot of happiness in simply noticing how long those fleeting moments of delight can last in my body. I can still feel some of them from years ago. That by itself makes me happy!! 😆💚
I think joy might be the noticing of happiness. The noticing of contentment, awe and connection. The feeling of warmth. And I so love what you say about it leaving a trail, staying around for a while after. I definitely see that 🤍
I love that..."joy might be the noticing of happiness". I do think that is an understanding of joy that resonates with me. When you are mindfully aware of that inner feeling...
I really do want to notice the moments-to catch them as they pass by….
I really love this idea, of joy being the noticing of happiness. Noticing, learning, becoming more aware of those moments is definitely something I want to try to do more of as I keep exploring joy. It feels practical and slow and accessible, which I love! 💚
Brooke, I teared-up when you recounted that your daughter put her head on your shoulder during that pivotal scene in ‘Barbie’. 🥹 Joy indeed.
I frequently find joy and happiness with my dog, Wilbur. Just this morning, I thought how happy I feel when he comes to sit next to me on the couch. (He has several dog beds, and the human bed, as well as the couch; hence it makes me happy when he chooses to sit right next to me.) Plus, I felt absolute joy when I was lying next to him on the bed, patting him, and watching him snooze.
Towards the end of last year I made a ‘saved’ folder on instagram called “joy” where I save posts that I find joyful. It’s a wonderful way of not only noting joy during time I spend scrolling, but it’s so wonderfully joyful to go back and look at the posts as a group, from time to time.
I love how you're using IG as a tool for building space for joy! And I love thinking of your Wilbur choosing to snooze next to you. Being chosen like that really does feel joyful doesn't it?
Oh, and I think that scene in Barbie will always bring me undone now. For the scene itself, and also for what it brings to mind 💚💚
🩷🩷🩷
I love this idea about your Instagram. I've got a highlight entitled "Note To Self" which is similar, and my highlights bring me joy, but to have one simply focused on "joy" is a great idea!🙂
Love this!
I love your definitions of both Brooke! ‘Happiness as a training ground for joy’ is a particularly delightful take! (Where does delight sit in relation to these other two I wonder?)
That’s such a good question Philippa. Maybe delight can be a vehicle for both joy and happiness? One branch in the tree of joy? You’ve given me something to ponder over the weekend that’s for sure! 💚
Hi Brooke. In your quest for defining joy, have you come across I grid Fetell Lee, who wrote a book about it, did a TED talk and has an amazing website - The Aesthetics of Joy! If not, I highly recommend. 👀🎈
I hadn’t heard of Ingrid or her work but I’ll absolutely check it out. Thanks so much for sharing Debs! 💚
I find her work is joyous (ahem) and insightful. I'd love to hear what you think, when you have had dig around.
I’ll definitely let you know. I’ve added her TED talk to my watch list post op!
Sorry, just seen that should say Ingrid
Your descriptions of joy brought me joy too. I could "see" and "feel" them. Thanks so much for sharing!
I'm so glad Marnie! There's something really physical for me when I feel joy, a sensation that I can't remember feeling any other time. It's really cool to know that came through 💚
I enjoyed this post SO MUCH Brooke!! It was a pleasure to read and I like the way it made me consider the terms. I have to say that "So, colour me bemused." made me laugh out loud in a public space 😆
Best best best of luck with your surgery. I look forward to hearing that it went super well 🥰
This is so timely, Brooke - I am having to do some hard reflecting on big life changes and making permanent space for joy moving forward around those changes has been very much on my mind (your concept of tilting rather than worklife 'balance' has been so helpful in this respect!). Happiness to me is a quieter, calmer feeling, overlapping strongly with contentment - a good cup of tea in the sunshine, a catch up with a friend. Joy is a bit brighter, and often more spontaneous, maybe - a delighted chortle or full on snortlaugh at a piece of silliness sent by a friend; riding my bike home at midnight on empty back streets; like you, I enjoy belting out a song while driving too. Thankyou for sharing :)