The truth about joy

Pressing Pause Podcast episode 99 The truth about joy

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Welcome to Pressing Pause. I’m Gabrielle Treanor, a mindset and positive psychology coach and writer, exploring how we can create, find and feel more calm, ease and joy in our daily lives. 

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Hello and welcome to episode 99. I planned this episode weeks ago but getting Covid took me out of action for a couple of weeks so I’m only now getting round to recording it. I don’t know what your experience was of having Covid but even though I’m double vaccinated and boosted I felt like I had the flu! I’m very glad to now be through it so if you’re listening to this while feeling ill I am sending you lots of love, and paracetamol.

Before we get stuck into this episode I wanted to let you know that I’m working on something new for you that I’m really excited about. I’m not ready to share the details yet but I can tell you that it’s called the Calm and Joy Catalyst and it is going to be all about infusing your daily life with more calm and joy. I know it’s really annoying of me to not say more but if you want to be the first to know when I’m ready to share you can sign up to get all the info at gabrielletreanor.com/catalyst. I’ll put the link in the show notes too. 

And remember, on my website there’s a resource library packed with free guides for you including a new one I recently added which is all about helping you to start your day calm without needing to find a single extra minute in your morning. You can take your pick of the free guides, or get all of them if you like, at gabrielletreanor.com/free. And I’ll put that link in the show notes too.

Now, I choose a guiding word for each year and my words for 2021 (I had two for the first time) were ease and intuition. At times it felt pretty difficult to find ease and to tune into my intuition but having those words to remind, inspire and guide me meant that I felt far more ease and was able to hear my intuition much more easily than before.

Of course this is ongoing – nothing in the world of self exploration and development is ever once and done – and it leads into my word for this year which I’ll come to in a minute. 

When we pay more attention to what feels right for ourselves than what the world outside of us is dictating, we will naturally act and feel more in accordance with our values. Our outsides will match our insides. We’ll feel more confident in the decisions we make and the actions we take.

That doesn’t mean that we won’t meet resistance, from other people as well as ourselves. We’re butting up against years of conditioning that’s taught us to abandon ourselves for what is expected of us, after all.

To allow space for what’s joyful, what feels right, what we choose to do just because that’s what we want, is to go against the conditioned thinking that we need to be productive, to be useful, achieving, contributing. 

That’s the messaging from our society to keep us busy upholding the structures we live in.

To say you want calm, and you want joy, AND to take action to make space to feel more calm and joy in life every day is to be rebellious.

Because when we feel calm, grounded and centred, when we feel joy, hope and optimism, we aren’t exhausting ourselves to be someone’s else ideal. We aren’t abandoning ourselves.

Instead we’re acting in line with our values. We’re speaking up for ourselves and others, for what we believe in, what we care about. We’re forging stronger connections, we’re experiencing the fullness of life and we’re being our whole selves. 

It’s not about feeling calm and joy to the exclusion of all else, all emotions are there to be felt and it’s not possible (or desirable) to remain in any one emotion permanently. Which means calm and joy ARE to be felt. Not pushed away for later, when we’ve done what we have to, when we’ve earned it, when we’re allowed.  

Now this brings me to my guiding word for 2022. 

Joy.

Simply, joy. 

It feels light, inspiring, exciting, fun, playful and rebellious.

I can prioritise joy AND I can be responsible, meeting my commitments.

I can prioritise joy AND I can be kind, caring and compassionate.

I can prioritise joy AND I can work hard, be productive and supportive.

In fact, infusing my life with joy, and the calm that is an intrinsic part of it, makes being and doing everything I’ve listed above so much more possible!

We think that calm and joy come second, they’re a byproduct or a reward for when we’ve ticked off the to do list, met expectations, taken care of everyone else… Only then is it possible for us to feel calm, only then are we allowed to feel joy.

That’s the insidious story we’ve been sold and fallen for. But it’s not true. It’s back to front, in fact. 

It’s creating and claiming our own calm and joy that empowers us to make the difference we want. To be wholeheartedly compassionate. To act from a place of integrity. To be and do all that we want, we care about, we’re passionate about.

If you’re listening to this and you can feel resistance coming up, which wouldn’t be at all surprising, get curious about it. 

What is the resistance?

What thoughts and stories are surfacing around how you can feel calm and joy?

What feels challenging about creating and claiming more calm and joy in your daily life?

Scribble down what’s coming up for you so you can see it more clearly, muse on it and come back to it.

There’s a lot more to talk about on this and I’m here for conversations about ALL of it so if you want to share your thinking please do get in touch with me. You can email me at [email protected].

I hope you enjoyed this episode 99, you can find the show notes and transcript at gabrielletreanor.com/podcast. And remember, if you want to be the first to know what my new offering, the Calm and Joy Catalyst, is all about, go to gabrielletreanor.com/catalyst.

If you enjoyed listening to this Pressing Pause podcast please do leave a rating or a review on iTunes so that other people can find the podcast too.

Thanks again for listening, until next time, lovely people.

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