I’m Rejecting Despair and Resisting by Cultivating Love and Joy
You can do it too. No burying your head in the sand required.
Welcome! I’m Dr. Jillian, a physician leader, mom, and coach who is on a mission to help other high achieving professionals and recovering perfectionists live less stressed, more satisfying lives. If the full post doesn’t show up in your e-mail, come over to the webpage or Substack App to see the whole thing. Subscribe here to get future posts straight to your inbox:
If you’re reading this on the day it is published, it’s Valentine’s Day.
It’s also a dark time in history where science-deniers, fascists, felons, and otherwise unqualified people are making huge decisions that will have lasting and likely disastrous consequences, especially for vulnerable populations (read: not the broligarchy) and the planet.
But… I digress.
This post is not about them directly. It’s about us, and how we can keep persisting in spite of what’s happening.
First of all, if you clicked on this post or opened this email, congratulations!
It feels right to start with a note of congratulations because I can understand how the title might invoke eye-rolling for some people, especially with all of this *gestures vaguely around* happening.
The concepts of ‘joy’ and ‘love’ have been triggering for me at plenty of times in my life, especially as they have been weaponized via toxic positivity along with the word ‘resilience’ to make people feel like they should expect to be tolerating toxic conditions.
The words ‘love’ and ‘joy’ can also feel like loaded terms these days as we witness so much suffering and heartache.
Some people may remark that it feels selfish to allow ourselves to tap into joy while others are suffering.
Others may say that it makes us out of touch.
Both of these sentiments are understandable.
And yet they are incomplete.
We need love and joy in order to carry on with the work of living and our attempts to make the world better where we can.
Just Do What You Can Do
The poet Ross Gay has put words to something that I have felt numerous times in the work that I do. Joy and suffering are often intertwined. They can both be present if we only take the time to notice them.
Joy is tethered to sorrow… it’s connected to the daily fact that we and what we love are disappearing… We and what we love are in some kind of pain. And, if not now, we will be. Part of what I think of as joy is the way we tend to one another in the midst of that.
-Ross Gay
Understandably, it’s easier for most of us to notice negative experiences.
Our brains are wired for negativity. They are far more likely to hold onto negative experiences at work and in life than they are to hold onto positive ones.
If we are truly in danger, this adaptive mechanism in our brains can save our lives. However, what often happens is that much the fear and anxiety we experience comes from the thought spirals we get stuck in. In this case, our negativity bias can be incredibly unhelpful (at best) and detrimental to our health (at worst).
We do not make good decisions when we are stuck in an anxiety spiral. We get stuck. And we become incapable of speaking out or fighting back on issues that are important to us.
Because of this, these days it’s even more important to be intentional about noticing joy, love, and other positive emotions when they appear.
How to overcome your own negativity bias:
Pause and reflect.
I started doing this for myself more because I noticed that it has an amplifying effect on the joy I’m experiencing.
One example from my own life was taking a walk after a workshop I led recently and really letting myself feel how energized and uplifted I felt after it was over.
You might do this by journaling, making a voice note, or simply by taking a minute to pause to bask in the joy when you feel it.
Share joy with others.
Take time with a colleague, friend, or loved one and share a small joy (or more) that you’ve experienced recently.
Allow the other person to share their joy uninterrupted and then share your own joy.
Take a moment at the end to soak in how it feels.
This whole practice may only take a few minutes but can have a lasting benefit on your day.
Practice joy
Joy can be increased by actively creating it.
My favorite example of this in my own work life is the time we threw a birthday party for a young patient in the pediatric intensive care unit. The whole team pitched in- creating/decorating a banner, securing presents with the help of our child and family life team, and singing happy birthday with the help of our music therapy team. On the day of the party, a crowd of people filed into the patient’s room. Immediately, the young patient appeared nervous. Intuitively, the music therapist started singing more quietly and slowly than she may have in other situations, and the crowd followed suit. The patient relaxed, and their whole family joined in singing.
The patient’s family still talks about this experience, and so do the people who were there, including me.
This whole experience reminded me that you can create lasting joy simply by setting out to do so. Who wouldn’t want more of that?
When we use these techniques, we strengthen the pathways and make joy/other positive emotions easier to access in the future.
How can you create or recognize joy and love today?
If you’re looking for inspiration, you can find some here:
The Broadest Portal to Joy – The Marginalian
Inciting Joy with author Ross Gay - YouTube
How To Train Your Mind To Recognize the Love All Around You — Sharon Salzberg
How to Cope with Uncertainty - by Jillian Bybee
162 things to do instead of doomscrolling by
No one asked you to - by
58 awesome ways to share kindness and why it matters by
I would love to hear how you’re cultivating love and joy in the comments.
You bring so much good here Jillian, thank you x
Thank you for sharing the kindness by sharing my post on kindness :-)!!