Seeing—and Writing—Through a Lens of Joy
There are so many reasons to feel joy each day, yet often we forget they exist or don’t notice them. Or we focus on things that increase our stress rather than our joy. Why? It can be traced to a primal survival instinct we have called a negativity bias. It is our brain’s way of trying to keep us safe by paying closer attention to “danger,” or negative inputs. (This article from Very Well Mind breaks negativity bias down really well.) While important in survival situations, constant focus on the negative can take its toll on our mental health. In our modern world, there is often very little actual threat to our lives on a day-to-day basis, and making a concerted effort to notice the positive joyful moments can actually help us live a more fulfilling life.
I have experienced firsthand that what we focus on grows, so the more we choose to focus on (and repeat) the joys we experience, the more we will feel joy. It does not mean we ignore hard things or deny what is right in front of us; it simply means we see our lives through a lens of joy, through a perspective that encourages us to feel wonder and grow, even through the hard times. It actually helps to increase our resilience.
My original inspiration for this post came over a year ago while listening to a Hidden Brain podcast episode titled “Happiness 2.0: Surprising Sources of Joy.” The host, Shankar Vedantam, was discussing with researcher, Elizabeth Dunn, her findings that demonstrated overall that experiences bring more lasting joy than things. This is a major reason I love books as much as I do; I see them as experiences rather than things. Diving into a story, connecting with the characters, traveling to far-off lands, learning lessons from other people’s experiences—all of these mini-experiences contribute to a meaningful life. And books can give us those experiences right from the comfort of our own home.
However, research has also shown that material things can bring subtler and smaller joy over longer stretches of time (think shoes or a coat you love that bring you joy whenever you put them on). In this sense, an item almost becomes an experience because of how it makes you feel again and again, the memories it evokes, and the pleasure you derive from using or wearing it.
There are also, paradoxically, creative ways to discover joy from absence. When we abstain from what we find joyful for a time, it actually increases our joy when we actually do that thing due to our anticipation. Overall, the Hidden Brain podcast episode provided excellent research findings and food for thought regarding what our actual sources of joy truly are.
In summary, three simple ways we can see our lives through a lens of joy are:
Experiences: real life ones or reading about them
Things: specifically things that make you smile when you use or wear them
Absence: refraining for a time from what brings you joy in order to increase anticipation
I named my business Joyfull Communications because my middle name (and my daughter’s middle name) is Joy. It is the core quality of my being that has been constant throughout my life. My mother was—and still is—fond of reminding me during hard times, “Nothing can take your joy away.” While storms will come, they always pass, and my joy—often sourced in surprising ways—gives me the strength to weather them and have faith that there are brighter times ahead.
Much of my writing for business clients is done for marketing purposes—either to market to their current clients or prospective clients—and one of the elements that sets my writing (and their marketing) apart is the joy inside the words. I ask questions, gather information, and write stories that portray their business, offerings, and storytelling through a lens of joy. While there is much data out there on the power of marketing to exploit people’s fear and pain, I believe that inherently, people would rather interact with a company, brand, or community that appeals to their joy and desire. We cannot ignore the fear or pain that may cause someone to seek a product or service, but we can frame our language in a way that speaks to the joy on the other side of what we can do for them.
“Because in trying to articulate what, perhaps, joy is, it has occurred to me that among other things—the trees and the mushrooms have shown me this—joy is the mostly invisible, the underground union between us, you and me, which is, among other things, the great fact of our life and the lives of everyone and thing we love going away. If we sink a spoon into that fact, into the duff between us, we will find it teeming. It will look like all the books ever written. It will look like all the nerves in a body. We might call it sorrow, but we might call it a union, one that, once we notice it, once we bring it into the light, might become flower and food. Might be joy.”
― Ross Gay, The Book of Delights: Essays
When, as businesses, writers, or simply individuals, we can find joy in our communication, when we can tap into “the mostly invisible, the underground union between us,” that Ross Gay refers to in one of his brilliant essays in The Book of Delights: Essays, we create a bridge between us and our readers. It is an invitation of sorts. “Come on over,” we say with our joyful language. “It’s safe here,” and, “Let your hair down,” and “Stay and play awhile,” and “Do you see the joy?” And who wouldn’t want to read more when that is how your communication feels?
No matter what business or industry I am writing for, the most positive responses come from people who feel seen and heard and recognized by what has been written. In short, writing through a lens of joy connects us to each other and makes us feel valued. As in Ross Gay’s quote above, that does not always mean the words are flowery or happy-go-lucky. Sometimes they are filled with sorrow or bear witness to the most challenging circumstances. But always, there is an underlying joy in the depth of connection between writer and reader.
Some questions you might ask as you are writing for your audience and wanting to write “through a lens of joy” are:
What experience of joy have I created or delivered for a client recently?
When have I witness my clients experiencing joy?
What can I write—in an ad, a social post, an article, a newsletter—that will evoke joy from my clients?
What difficult circumstances have most of my clients gone through that I can relate to? What could I write about this that could connect us?
What is a shared joy between me and my clients?
I’ll share a surprising source of joy I experienced this past fall. A friend invited me up to spend a day at his family cabin near the Mogollon Rim. After an afternoon of kayaking and seeing enough wildlife to make me squeal with delight (rainbow trout! a blue heron! a family of otters!), we settled into our individual rhythms of writing at their family’s long wooden dining table. A couple hours later, as the sun began to go into hiding, I asked if we could go for a walk in the woods behind the cabin. “Sure!” he replied, “But I don’t know if we’ll have enough light for you to see Treebeard’s Throne...” Ummm, what?!
“There will be enough light,” I said. “Show me!”
As we walked far out into the woods, the cabin becoming smaller and smaller behind us, I wondered what this so-called throne looked like. Was it man-made? Natural? Alive? Dead? Simple? Extravagant? My friend shared a few stories of family members having crawled “through” it, making me wonder at the size… and the sacred nature of this “throne.” The anticipation building, each step I took felt more and more exciting. Just as my friend began to doubt himself in remembering the throne’s exact location, and the darkness had begun to descend, I saw it. “Is that Treebeard’s Throne?” I asked, already certain we had found it.
The old Alligator Juniper tree trunk jutted up from the earth—like a throne for the wild things. It was frightful in its rough exterior and majestic in its barren beauty. A hole had formed (been burned?) at the base, just large enough for a person to crawl through. “It’s a portal,” I said in wonder.
“Yes,” my friend said, “most of our family has crawled through it. We all feel different after we do.”
“I have to crawl through it,” I said as I moved towards the backside of the base and lowered myself down into a push-up position. I have always experienced the transformative power of nature, but this felt like something different, some mixing of nature, magic, and pure joy. There is something about opening ourselves up to the possibility of transformation—whatever portal of joy we may be traveling through—that communicates to the universe that we are ready for change.
As I army-crawled through the soil and burnt pieces under Treebeard’s Throne, I felt something within me release. I was leaving old beliefs behind and letting the joy of this moment rush through my entire being. I stood up, brushed off my clothes, and with dirt smudges on my face and arms, smiled wide at my friend. “That was incredible,” I said. He just smiled knowingly. It felt like the wild joy-child within me had been reawakened. We wandered back to the cabin with just enough glow from the setting sun to see our way.
On this small adventure, this passage through one of nature’s portals, joy walked hand in hand with curiosity. When we approach life and writing through a lens of joy, curiosity is a natural friend. Wonder shows up at every turn, and we find ourselves in awe of what is revealed. The more we open up to wild joyful adventures (like crawling under an old tree trunk at dusk), the more we learn and discover. The stories tell themselves, the connections appear like magic, and we find ourselves—and the ones we share our lives and words with—transformed.
What are some surprising sources of joy for you?
What do you see when you look through your own lens of joy?
