This is the LAST episode in a five-part series on Joy. We both read a little book by Dr Marcus Warner and Chris Coursey: The 4 Habits of Joy-Filled People: 15 Minute Brain Science Hacks to a More Connected and Satisfying Life. And thought it would be great to share with our listeners.
There are four habits you’ll need to build your joy house, the authors use the acronym CASA, which means “house” in Spanish.
C – Calming
A – Appreciating (GAMES: Gratitude, Anticipation, Memories, Experiences, Sing)
S – Storytelling
A – Attacking Toxic Thoughts
If you missed the earlier episodes, we recommend that you go back and listen to them because we laid a foundation for all the future episodes.
Review
At the time of birth the part of the brain that grows with the experience of joy is barely developed. how well it develops and grows is largely influenced by relational activity. These essential skills can be developed before we are even old enough to speak. and we can develop them all throughout our lives no matter our childhood experiences.
As a reminder, we said in the introductory episode that in Western cultures we tend to see joy as a choice. But joy happens predominantly in the relational right hemisphere of the brain, while choices and cognition happen in the left.
This is significant, because the data flow in the brain moves from right to left, not the other way around. Right brain activity informs left brain activity, not the reverse.
Last week we talked about beginning to collect THREE TYPES of stories from our lives.
- Stories where I stayed relational even when I experienced one of the SADSAD emotions.
- Stories where I returned to joy after experiencing one (or more) of the SADSAD emotions.
- Stories where I wish I could have a do-over and the lessons I learned.
Bonnie: I knew I was coming up on a difficult conversation. Instead of reacting in the moment and being led by all the thoughts/emotions rocketing thru me, I was able to notice what my body was doing. Did I quit breathing? was my jaw clenched or my shoulders up near my ears? When I regulate my body and focus on listening, it’s much easier to stay present & “adult” in the conversation.
Renee: I have a Storytelling Folder on the notes app of my iphone. I have begun recording these types of stories. (Tell the story of the Walgreens Passport Photo)
Today, we are talking about ATTACKING TOXIC THOUGHTS.
In the chapter on attacking toxic thoughts, Dr Warner tells the story of walking into a coffee shop one day and seeing an advertisement for Alcoholics Anonymous on the bulletin board. It was promoting an event with a guest speaker, but what caught his attention was the phrase at the bottom of the flier in bold print
“Just ignore that committee in your head!”
Most of us know what it is like to have racing thoughts or to have arguments going on inside that we wish we could silence. One of my (Renee) favorite verses is from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians:
For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:3-5
Chicken or the Egg?
Beliefs play a major role in our emotions. Sometimes our emotions trigger a flood of thoughts. At other times the flow moves in the opposite direction and our thoughts trigger a flood of emotions.
Let’s say you get angry at your husband because you went out with your friends and he stayed home to keep the kids. You walk through the door to find a home to a completely wrecked house: dirty dishes in the sink, toys in the floor, laundry to be done. You might think something like this, “He always does this. He’s so selfish. He’s been this way forever. Why can’t he see what this does to me? I wonder if he even loves me? I’m totally taken for granted. I wish I could escape from here. I wonder what it would be like for him to think about me for once.”
And let’s be honest, this may represent just a fraction of the barrage of thoughts that come cascading in when you feel this kind of anger.
This same process happens with nearly every emotion we feel. It can be exhausting. Sometimes we get depressed because our relationships feel hopeless. Sometimes we feel anxiety in our bodies and wonder what triggered it and if it will ever end. When big emotions combine, they create complex feelings that can feel like stepping on the accelerator and the brakes at the same time. Really big emotions can shut us down and get us stuck with the overwhelming thoughts in our heads.
But.
Sometimes our thoughts can trigger a flood of emotions. (Renee’s example of when the kids were babies.) I felt like a terrible mom, even though my beliefs were not true. If I believe someone is sabotaging me at work, I will react to that belief whether it is true or not. If I believe a certain politician is a horrible person with horrible policies, I may feel disgust and anger at the mere mention of that person’s name, whether my beliefs are true or not. Beliefs can create emotions that drive behavior.
Automatic Negative Thoughts
Dr Daniel Amen runs a series of brain clinics around the country and specializes in helping people determine what is happening in their brains that are driving unwanted emotions or behaviors. In the waiting rooms of his clinics, there are pictures of anteaters or stuffed animals in the shape of anteaters all around. They make pretty good conversation starters. After all, who goes to a medical office expecting to see anteaters? it is not uncommon for people to ask, “what is up with the anteaters?”To which someone answers, “glad you asked.” Dr Amen calls the flood of thoughts that accompany our emotions ANTS, which stands for automatic negative thoughts.
I Am Not My Thoughts. I Am Not My Emotions. Practice pausing & observing what your brain or emotions are doing. Just be curious about them. Watch them go by with a “huh, where did that come from?” kind of attitude. Some temperaments find this easier than others do…! Think about thoughts & emotions as pieces of clothing and phrase it that way: “I’m wearing a little loneliness today” or “I put on my angry helmet” instead of “I AM lonely or I AM full of rage.” What do you notice about who’s in control when you say it/think it differently?
Preparing a Battle Strategy
Dr Warner tells a story of when he was in his mid-30s and was the pastor of a Community Church in Carmel, Indiana. His first week on the job he got the terrible news that a young man had died in a tragic car crash. He was wrapping up a trip with a group of friends when the vehicle blew a tire at high speed and flipped several times. some had survived, but some, like this young man, had died. It was an agonizing event on several levels. One of the first things he had to do as a pastor was sit down with this young man’s mother and his fiance to process what happened. He admits that he had no idea what to say to bring comfort at a time like this. The young man had just graduated from college and was planning to marry his fiance that summer before starting Med school. In a horrifying instant, what appeared to be a charmed life crashed into unrecognizable oblivion.
The fiance did not live in the area, so they only met a few times, but the mother was a member of the church and so he met with her more regularly. One of the assignments he eventually gave her was to start each day with a journaling exercise. As someone who had experienced both the reality of God and the reality of the devil many times, and because she was coming to him for pastoral care, he asked her to start with two questions
- What lie is the devil trying to get me to believe today?
- What is the truth God wants me to hold on to instead?
Each week she would share her journaling with Dr Warner. A few years later he received an email from her thanking her for the journaling exercise with the comment, “It probably saved my life.”
Part of turning your brain into an anteater is preparing a battle strategy.
This means you want to be equipped, and in the book they recommend that we start with the seven core upsetting emotions.
- Sadness–the feeling I have lost what brought me joy
- Anger–the high energy feeling that makes me want to destroy something or stop what is causing me pain or creating Injustice
- Disgust–the feeling that I want to vomit because something feels toxic and I just need to get away from it
- Shame–the feeling that I do not bring you Joy and you are not happy to see me. shame tends to make me want to hang my head and avoid eye contact
- Fear– the high energy feeling that makes me want to run away from danger
- Despair–the low energy feeling that comes from realizing that fixing my problem is impossible that I lack the time and resources to make things better
- Attachment Pain– the deep inner pain that comes from not being able to connect with someone who brings you joy. They may be out of town, or shut down emotionally, or unavailable for some other reason, There is pain inside because that connection is unavailable. this is what the woman who lost her son was feeling
When we do not stay ourselves and return to Joy from each emotion, they quickly become toxic motivators we use to motivate ourselves or others in some way.
Of course these are not the only emotions that exist. However, most of the other names we give to emotions can be understood as various levels of these emotions or various combinations of these emotions. For example, disappointment may be a combination of disgust, despair, and sadness. Annoyance is low-level anger. Rage is high level anger. It is not uncommon for people to have several upsetting emotions happening at the same time.
Exercise
Choose one of the emotions and make a list of common thoughts that support it.
Fear: My child is ________. (lying, cheating, stealing, hitting, being lazy) If they don’t get this under control, they’ll have no friends. They won’t be able to hold down a job. I’ll be a failure as a parent. People will see that I don’t know what I’m doing. It’s my fault they’re struggling with this because I did too.
Despair: Our financial situation is ___________ (hopeless, intractable, really hard). I’ve wracked my brain to figure out how to make more money. We won’t be able to provide for our kids’ future. Things will be hard forever. I don’t see a way out of this debt. My job is a dead end. I have no future. I’m doomed.
Once you have identified the most common thoughts, that attack you when you feel this particular emotion, write a list of replacement thoughts.
Fear: This is an opportunity for growth.. One day they will have mastered this and we’ll both celebrate. Everything is hard until it’s not. The people who love me, know I’m trying. Because I struggled with this, I can be empathetic and even more helpful.
Despair: There is ALWAYS a solution. God has infinite resources. I can trust Him with the future. Things WON’T be hard forever. I don’t see a way out, but God promises wisdom when I ask, so I’m gonna ask Him. Unexpected reversals for the good often happen. I have a hope and a future. I’m not alone. I can seek help.
The goal is to learn to recognize common attacks in our thought life and prepare ourselves to replace those thoughts with ones that are more helpful.
Reminder: Three options for the voices in your head… Your voice, the Holy Spirit, and the enemy. Read the story of the young man on page 153.
Common Toxic Thoughts that You can Counter with Truth:
I’ll always be alone.
I hate my body.
I’m unsatisfied with my job.
I’m not worthy.
I don’t have enough.
What About Religion?
Does it matter whether I am Christian or Muslim or Buddhist or atheist or something else when it comes to joy? The simple answer is no. You can increase your joy regardless of your faith or your worldview. The differences between our faiths have more to do with how well they explain reality. As Christians, we are convinced it helps to have a relationship with God who is happy to see us and happy to go through suffering with us, because it means we are never alone. It also helps to have a community of people who support each other in hard times. But the reality is that when it comes to joy, anyone with positive relationships and a positive attitude has access to this important emotion. This is a surprise to some Christians who believe the Holy Spirit is the only source of true joy, but the authors have met with many friends who embrace other views of reality and yet experience real joy.
Having said this, there is a universal angst most people experience as they look for a way to fill the longing in their hearts. Many of these people experience joy now and then, but know there is something still missing. We believe you can find the answer to this longing in a relationship with Jesus. From this perspective, the worldview of Christianity is especially suited to help people live with joy and peace. It offers a solution to shame through the forgiveness of sin. It offers a solution to the fear of death through the promise of Eternal life. It offers hope in times of despair and a God whose love cannot be measured.
Review
To review, you build a foundation for Joy by learning to practice calming and appreciation. You build a framework for your joy house by learning to tell stories that help create a narrative of Hope around the big emotions in life. In this episode we looked at how to complete the house by gaining some skills and how to attack toxic thoughts.
Satisfaction
Dr Warner and Chris Coursey end the book by talking about satisfaction. It’s how we fill our house with beautiful things. Too many of us fill our lives with temporary pleasures that don’t really satisfy. They are fun for a moment but even a few hours later the pleasure has faded. It would be nice to fill our lives with trips to the ocean and views of the mountains, but the secret to filling our lives with satisfying experiences is not just about the “wow moments” that knock us on our heels and leave us amazed. The secret is to learn to spend our day doing satisfying work and recognizing the little things we can experience on a daily or weekly basis that give us the sense that “this is good.” People who don’t know what they find satisfying generally struggle to know who they really are. Our identity and our passions are intimately connected.
So what makes an experience satisfying? they give a few characteristics that separate the truly satisfying from the merely pleasurable.
Creativity
Hobbies that call out our creativity and allow us to express something of what is in our hearts are always more satisfying than things that are easy and short-lived. One of the traits that characterizes joy-filled people is the habit of filling their lives with creative activities and hobbies that satisfy like music, sports, arts, crafts, writing, and gardening.
Relationships
Many activities that we find satisfying are things we do on our own, but that does not mean that they are not relational. Many times when I am writing I am thinking about my family, my friends, my audience, and the people I would like to influence. I think about how their lives will be blessed by reading what I write. I think about how to communicate with them in the most effective ways. Part of the joy of riding is hoping that it will make someone happy; there is a relational payoff in the end.
And some activities are fun because of the relational connection involved. Taking your kids to get ice cream or to a movie creates satisfaction, in part, because we get to watch how excited they get. It’s much more satisfying than the many times we’ve all been in the same room but we’re each doing our own thing.
Effort
Satisfying things are worth waiting for. There is something satisfying about a do- it-yourself project. Making things with your own hands or going through the process of working hard to achieve something, even if it is small, brings a level of satisfaction that doesn’t come with experiences that are easy and short lived.
Waiting
Satisfying things are worth waiting for. Gardening is a great example of this. When we don’t know what satisfies, we don’t know what is worth working for and waiting for. We don’t know who we are and how it is like us to act.
Merely pleasurable experiences don’t create lasting joy. They are fun in the moment and then they are over. Satisfying experiences create a feeling of pleasure we can revisit again and again. The feeling lasts over time.
We encourage you to help your children distinguish between what is merely pleasurable for the moment and what brings lasting satisfaction. Children who live for temporary pleasures do not develop maturity, because they do not develop the emotional resilience that allows them to bounce back from hard things. On the other hand, children who learn how to work for and wait for what is good live with a higher level of satisfaction. This process anchors their identity and helps them know how it is like them to act no matter what is going on in life in relationships.
Conclusion
Joy is not meant to be an escape from reality, it is part of what gives our short lives meaning. The primary speaker in Ecclesiastes reflects on this and says, “So I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany them in their toil all the days of the life God has given them under the sun.” Ecclesiastes 8:15
In Ecclesiastes, the phrase “life under the sun” stands in contrast to eternity. The authors note that this entire book is, in many ways, an ode to the meaninglessness of life if there is no eternity. The term “life under the sun” reminds us that this life is short and nothing is guaranteed. God has set eternity in our hearts so that we long not just for joy in this life, but for the hope of something eternal. We can take all of the characteristics of satisfaction and when we think about them in light of eternity, they simply grow more profound.
As Christians, we believe God wired us for joy and that he desires to share joy with us. Jesus said, “I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.” John 15:11
In Numbers 6:24-26, we read that every day the high priest of Israel was to pray this blessing on his people, “May the Lord bless you and keep you. may the Lord cause his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. may the Lord lift his face to you and give you peace.”
If you think about it, when someone’s face shines upon us, it is because they are happy to see us. When someone lifts their face toward us it means they see us and are happy to be with us. This is our hope for you too.