When was the last time you felt genuinely joyful?
Not happy. Happy is a mood — something that happens to you when circumstances cooperate. We’re talking about something deeper. That feeling of being fully here, fully alive, fully connected to something good.
If you had to think about it for a second, that’s okay. Most of us do. Because choosing joy — actually allowing yourself to feel it without hedging, without bracing, without the quiet asterisk of “but what if” — takes more courage than it sounds.
And this week, we want to talk about why.
This Month on Chasing Brighter
We’re in the middle of our June series on joy, summer, and intentional living — and every conversation this month has been building to this one.
In week one, we talked about giving yourself permission to slow down before life forces your hand. Last week, we explored what it means to romanticize your life — to actually notice and reclaim what’s already yours. This week, we’re going to the heart of it: joy itself. What it is. Why it’s different from happiness. And what quietly stops women from fully feeling it.
Joy Is Not Happiness — and That Matters
Let’s separate these two things because they get conflated constantly.
Happiness is reactive. Something good happens, mood lifts. It’s circumstance-dependent by nature. Joy is different. It’s more internal. More like a ground state — a way of being present to your own life that doesn’t require everything to be going well.
You can feel joy in the middle of a hard season. In a small, quiet moment. In a cup of coffee you actually taste. In a workout that belongs entirely to you.
Psychologists distinguish between what they call hedonic well-being (pleasure-based, reactive, tied to circumstances) and eudaimonic well-being (meaning-based, internal, tied to how you’re living). Ryan and Deci’s foundational research on this distinction — published in the Annual Review of Psychology — shows that eudaimonic well-being is the stronger predictor of long-term flourishing. In other words: the kind of deep, chosen, internal good feeling that Jessica describes in this episode isn’t just nicer. It’s more durable.
Joy as a practice means you orient toward it deliberately. It doesn’t just happen to you. You choose it. And that choosing is where the courage comes in.
The Fear of Joy (This Is the Part Nobody Talks About)
Here’s the part that doesn’t get enough airtime: a lot of people are actually afraid of joy.
Not intellectually. But in practice. There’s something that happens when things are going really well — and instead of sinking into it fully, you get a little anxious. Like you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. Like joy is a warning sign rather than a reward.
Brené Brown calls this “foreboding joy” — and her research shows it’s one of the most common human experiences, especially among people who care deeply and carry a lot of responsibility. In moments of genuine joy — watching your kids, feeling healthy, loving your life — a part of your brain starts scanning for threats. Because you know what loss feels like. And you’re trying to protect yourself from it by never fully arriving in the good.
But here’s the cost: you never fully inhabit the good things. You’re always a little separate from them. Managing the risk of losing them instead of living in them.
And then there’s the guilt dimension. Is it okay to feel this much joy when other people are struggling? Is it selfish to be this content? Joy with an asterisk. I can feel it, but…
The truth — and the research supports this — is that people who have more access to genuine joy tend to be more generous, more present, and more able to show up for others. Joy is not a zero-sum resource. You having it doesn’t take it from anyone else. And choosing joy in a culture that prizes suffering as evidence of seriousness? That actually takes something.
Making Joy Non-Negotiable
So what does choosing joy look like as a daily practice? Because we don’t want this to sound like a greeting card.
It starts with noticing what makes you feel most alive — and then treating those things as necessary. Not luxury. Not reward. Not something you earn after you’ve been productive enough. Necessary. My life is measurably better when this is in it.
Then you put those things in the schedule with the same commitment you give a work deadline. Joy doesn’t get the leftover time.
Jessica’s workouts are the clearest example. She protects them like meetings. She doesn’t move them for anyone. And that’s not selfish — that’s exactly how she stays the person who can show up for everyone else. When she says “I choose joy — not because my life is perfect, but because I decided I wasn’t going to wait for perfect to feel good” — that’s the whole episode in one sentence.
Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith’s work on rest types is relevant here too. She identifies creative rest and emotional rest as two of the seven types most people neglect. Joy often lives in those categories — in doing something purely for the experience of it, in allowing yourself to feel good without productive justification. When we skip those types of rest, we lose access to the very states that make life feel worth living.
🎧 Listen to This Week’s Episode
This one gets personal. We talk about the fear of joy, the guilt that shows up when things are actually going well, and what it means to choose feeling good in a culture that rewards suffering. You don’t want to miss it.
Listen to Episode 3 Now: Choosing Joy Is an Act of Courage
✨ Try This This Week
- Name one thing that genuinely brings you joy — specific, personal, not aspirational. Something that actually makes you feel it. Then ask: when did I last do this? When can I next? Put it somewhere real.
- Practice staying in a good moment this week. When something genuinely lovely is happening — a conversation, a meal, a quiet evening — try to stay in it instead of half-leaving. Ten more seconds of presence. That’s the practice.
- Notice if you’re hedging your joy. “I know I shouldn’t be this happy when…” “This can’t last…” “Something’s going to go wrong…” If you hear that voice, gently name it and let yourself have the moment anyway.
- Ask yourself: when did I last do something purely for fun — with no productivity value, no output, no justification? If you can’t remember, that’s your next Brighter Move.
What’s Coming Next
Next week is the Season 5 finale. Kelly and Jessica are looking back at what this entire season actually changed — not the content, the real shifts. And they’re leaving you with a summer invitation you don’t want to miss.
You don’t have to earn the right to feel good. You don’t have to wait for everything to be perfect. Joy is not fragile. It’s brave.
Choose it anyway. 🤍
Internal Links:
External Authority References:
- Ryan & Deci — Hedonic vs. Eudaimonic Well-Being — Their landmark research (Annual Review of Psychology, 2001) distinguishes between pleasure-based happiness (hedonic) and meaning-based flourishing (eudaimonic), showing that eudaimonic well-being — the kind of deep, internal, chosen joy discussed in this episode — is the stronger predictor of long-term psychological health and resilience.
- Brené Brown — Foreboding Joy (Daring Greatly) — Brown’s research on vulnerability identified foreboding joy as the pattern of bracing for disaster in moments of genuine happiness. Her work demonstrates that this self-protective pattern prevents people from fully experiencing positive emotions, and that the antidote is practicing gratitude in real time.
- Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith — Creative and Emotional Rest — Dalton-Smith’s Seven Types of Rest Framework identifies creative rest and emotional rest as two of the most commonly neglected categories. Joy frequently lives in these areas — in doing things for the pure experience of them, in allowing positive emotions without productive justification.