Joy Is Not Something You Chase. It’s Something You Remember.
For a long time, I treated joy like something I had to schedule.
Maybe you know what I mean.
Joy was the vacation I looked forward to once or twice a year. It was the special dinner, the weekend away, the concert tickets, the view from someplace beautiful, or the rare open afternoon when nobody needed much from me.
I loved those moments, and I still do.
But somewhere along the way, I started to believe that joy belonged mostly to those occasional bright spots. Everyday joy, when it happened, felt more accidental than intentional. It showed up when it showed up, and I was grateful for it, but I didn’t really understand that I could make more room for it on purpose.
I also put conditions on joy.
I’d let myself feel more joyful when the scale hit a certain number. When the bank account had another comma. When the house was in order. (ha!) When the hard season passed. When the next big thing was handled. When I had worked hard enough, served enough, proven enough, and finally earned the right to exhale.
When, when, when.
It’s amazing how reasonable those conditions can sound when you’re living inside them.
The problem is that “when” becomes a moving target. You reach one goal, and another one appears. You finish one responsibility, and three more line up behind it. You get through one hard season, and life, being life, hands you another one.
If joy has to wait until everything is handled, most of us are going to be waiting a very long time.
What I used to misunderstand about joy
I used to equate joy with a certain feeling. To me, it felt light and effervescent, like champagne bubbles on my insides when life felt exciting and playful.
I still love that kind of joy.
I want more laughter, music, beauty, play, dancing like a goof in the kitchen, unexpected delight, and moments that make me forget to be self-conscious for a little while. I want the vacation joy, the celebration joy, the “can you believe how gorgeous this place is?” joy.
But life has taught me that joy is bigger than the bubbly moments.
Joy is more durable than happiness. Happiness tends to rise and fall with our circumstances. I’m not here to throw happiness under the bus. Happiness is lovely when it comes.
Joy runs deeper.
Joy can show up in ordinary life. It can show up while sitting by water, listening to a song you love, watching your dog do something ridiculous, having an honest conversation, laughing with a friend, or noticing that your shoulders have finally dropped after a long day.
Joy can also show up in hard seasons, which surprised me.
It doesn’t erase grief. It doesn’t make disappointment disappear. It doesn’t magically fix what hurts. But it can remind you that beauty is still available, love is still real, and some part of you is still alive beneath the weight of what you’re carrying.
Looking back, I can see that the little joys helped me survive some of the hardest parts of my life with my heart and sanity, hope and smile still intact.
That’s no small thing.
Joy is not just something you think about
Here’s the definition I’ve come to trust:
Joy is the aliveness that rises when you live in alignment with who you truly are. Not a reward you earn, not a feeling you chase, but a birthright already within you, waiting to be remembered.
That word aliveness matters.
Joy is not just a concept to understand. It’s not an affirmation to repeat until we believe it. It’s not a mindset trick, although our thoughts certainly matter.
Joy is something we feel.
Sometimes it feels like lightness in the chest. Sometimes it feels like warmth in the belly. Sometimes it feels like your shoulders finally dropping away from your ears. Sometimes it feels like your breath getting deeper, your face softening, or your body quietly saying, “Yes, this.”
Sometimes joy feels calm instead of exciting. That took me a while to learn.
For much of my life, I lived from the neck up. I trusted my thinking, planning, analyzing, troubleshooting, and problem-solving far more than I trusted the wisdom of my own body.
Honestly, my head got a lot done.
It also kept me from noticing what the rest of me was trying to say.
When we live mostly from the neck up, we can become very good at managing life while missing the signals that tell us whether we’re alive in a lit up way, not just alive from a pulse and overactive mind way. We can explain away exhaustion, override discomfort, even talk ourselves out of desire. We can dismiss the small moments of delight because they don’t seem practical enough to matter.
But the body is where joy whispers first. Before the mind has language for it, the body already knows.
Your body knows the difference between the room where you can breathe and the room where you’re bracing.
It knows the difference between the “yes” that feels aligned and the “yes” that feels like obligation wearing lipstick.
It knows the difference between peace and resignation.
It knows the difference between being busy with things that matter and being buried under things that drain the life out of you.
Joy often begins as a felt sense of clarity.
Rarely is it dramatic or loud. Just a small, honest signal that something in you is coming back into alignment.
Joy as a signal of alignment
That word alignment matters too.
Joy grows when the life you’re living gets closer to the truth of who you are. It grows when your choices, relationships, work, body, values, faith, and sense of self are not all pulling in different directions.
Of course, none of us lives in perfect alignment all the time. I certainly don’t. We’re human. We have bills, families, obligations, bad habits, old stories, hormones, blind spots, grief, and dogs that roll in mysterious substances right before company comes over.
This is not about creating a flawless, blissed-out life where nothing hard ever happens. That sounds impossible, and boring.
This is about learning to notice what brings you back to yourself.
Joy gives us information. When you feel more honest, alive, connected, grounded, open, or free, joy may be pointing to something true for you. It may be saying, “Pay attention. This matters. This feels like you.”
When joy feels far away, that’s information too.
It doesn’t mean you’ve failed or that you’re broken. It doesn’t mean you need to quit your job, move to Bali, or become the kind of person who makes homemade nut milk. (Not that any of those are bad things, just not required.)
It may simply mean that something in you needs care.
Maybe your body is tired. Maybe your heart is tired. Maybe your life has become too full of things you can manage and too empty of things that help you feel alive. Maybe you’ve been doing what responsible people do while some inner part of you has been quietly waiting to be remembered.
A question worth sitting with
So here’s the question I’d love to leave with you:
Where have you been making joy wait?
Maybe you’ve been waiting for the calendar to clear, the weight to come off, the bank account to grow, the house to look better, the grief to soften, the work to slow down, or everyone else to be okay.
Maybe you’ve been waiting because joy feels irresponsible when there’s so much to do or because part of you still believes you have to earn it.
What would shift if joy didn’t have to wait that long?
You might start by asking your body instead of only asking your calendar.
What helps me breathe more easily?
What makes my shoulders soften?
What brings a little warmth back to my chest?
What gives me even the tiniest feeling of “there I am”?
A walk outside counts. Or a song you love. Or a real conversation. Or a few minutes with your hand on your heart. Even a choice that feels more like truth than obligation. It all counts
Small joy is not small if it helps you come back to yourself.
Begin where you are
In the coming weeks, I’ll be writing more about how joy gets buried, how it can be tended, and how different people experience joy in different ways.
For now, I hope you’ll let this be enough:
Joy is not something you have to chase. It’s not something you have to earn. It’s not reserved for easier seasons, better moods, or more deserving versions of you.
Joy is already within you. Sometimes it just needs enough room to get your attention.
If you’d like a simple place to begin, I created the What’s Your Joy Style? Quiz to help you explore the natural way joy moves through you. It’s free, quick, and meant to help you recognize your own doorway back to joy.
Take the What’s Your Joy Style? Quiz →
Joyfully,