Quotes About Joy

Joy and gratitude can be very vulnerable and intense experiences. We are an anxious people and many of us have very little tolerance for vulnerability. Our anxiety and fear can manifest as scarcity. We think to ourselves: I'm not going to allow myself to feel this joy because I know it won't last. Acknowledging how grateful I am is an invitation for disaster. I'd rather not be joyful than have to wait for the other shoe to drop.

Gratitude, therefore, emerged from the data as the antidote to foreboding joy. In fact, every participant who spoke about the ability to stay open to joy also talked about the importance of practicing gratitude. This pattern of association was so thoroughly prevalent in the data that I made a commitment as a researcher not to talk about joy without talking about gratitude.

Women and men with the strongest true belonging practices maintain their belief in inextricable connection by engaging in moments of joy and pain with strangers. In simpler terms, we have to catch some of that lightning in a bottle. We have to catch enough glimpses of people connecting to one another and having fun together that we believe it's true and possible for all of us.

When we feel joy, it is a place of incredible vulnerability—it's beauty and fragility and deep gratitude and impermanence all wrapped up in one experience. When we can't tolerate that level of vulnerability, joy actually becomes foreboding, and we immediately move to self-protection. It's as if we grab vulnerability by the shoulders and say, "You will not catch me off guard. You will not sucker-punch me with pain. I will be prepared and ready for you.

What Is Joy? Joy seems to me a step beyond happiness. Happiness is a sort of atmosphere you can live in sometimes when you're lucky. Joy is a light that fills you with hope and faith and love.

Gratitude, therefore, emerged from the data as the antidote to foreboding joy.

The Hopi Indians have a saying, "To watch us dance is to hear our hearts speak." I know how much courage it takes to let people hear our hearts speak, but life is way too precious to spend it pretending like we're super-cool and totally in control when we could be laughing, singing, and dancing.

TEN GUIDEPOSTS FOR WHOLEHEARTED LIVING 1. Cultivating authenticity: letting go of what people think 2. Cultivating self-compassion: letting go of perfectionism 3. Cultivating a resilient spirit: letting go of numbing and powerlessness 4. Cultivating gratitude and joy: letting go of scarcity and fear of the dark

Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable.

we're a nation hungry for more joy: Because we're starving from a lack of gratitude.

But the more we're willing to seek out moments of collective joy and show up for experiences of collective pain—for real, in person, not online—the more difficult it becomes to deny our human connection, even with people we may disagree with.

Brown argues that play is not an option. In fact he writes, "The opposite of play is not work—the opposite of play is depression.

Joy seems to me a step beyond happiness. Happiness is a sort of atmosphere you can live in sometimes when you're lucky. Joy is a light that fills you with hope and faith and love.

I'm learning that recognizing and leaning into the discomfort of vulnerability teaches us how to live with joy, gratitude, and grace. I'm also learning that the uncomfortable and scary leaning requires both spirit and resilience.

Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—

La dicha es lo que sentimos cuando nos permitimos reconocer lo buenas que son las cosas en realidad».

Laughter, song, and dance create emotional and spiritual connection; they remind us of the one thing that truly matters when we are searching for comfort, celebration, inspiration, or healing: We are not alone. Ironically,

This ability to opt out of suffering and injustice or pretend everything is okay is the core of privilege: Today I choose not to acknowledge what's happening around me because it's too hard. The goal is to get to the place where we can think, I am aware of what's happening, the part I play, and how I can make it better, and that doesn't mean I have to deny the joy in my life.

I believe joy is probably the most vulnerable emotion we experience. We're afraid that if we allow ourselves to feel it, we'll get blindsided by disaster or disappointment. That's why in moments of real joy, many of us dress-rehearse

Believe me, comparison sucks the creativity and joy right out of life.

I'd rather not be joyful than have to wait for the other shoe to drop.

The Do column was brimming with words like worthiness, rest, play, trust, faith, intuition, hope, authenticity, love, belonging, joy, gratitude, and creativity. The Don't column was dripping with words like perfection, numbing, certainty, exhaustion, self-sufficiency, being cool, fitting in, judgment, and scarcity.

Laughter is a spiritual form of communing; without words we can say to one another, "I'm with you. I get it.

One of the questions I'm most often asked is "Don't you get really depressed talking to people about vulnerability and hearing about people's darkest struggles?" My answer is no, never. That's because I've learned more about worthiness, resilience, and joy from those people who courageously shared their struggles with me than from any other part of my work.