…find out where joy resides, and give it a voice far beyond singing. For to miss the joy is to miss all.

Joy.  It’s a term we see everywhere this time of year.  But what is it?  How do we define it?  Just Google the word, and you can find lots of sources defining it in sometimes contradictory ways.  Is it happiness?  Is it something more?  Joy seems so intangible, yet we just seem to know when we feel it, and when we don’t.  And we know it is important.  It feels deeper than many emotions, something we can cultivate and nurture even in difficult times.

In a Psychology Today article, Wilson (2023) references Arnett’s work on joy within Positive Psychology, and defines joy as: ““an intense feeling of heightened emotion as a consequence of just the right fit between our identity and the moment we are experiencing.”  Wilson elaborates on domains of joy, including emotional, social and cognitive, and how we can find joy within these domains.  

Collier (2022) writes in a Harvard Health Publishing article about finding joy during difficult times, which seems especially timely in our current climate.  Collier describes ways to find joy by engaging in routines of physical activity, meditation, cultivating gratitude, and limiting negativity.  She also discusses engaging in activities that help us find purpose and meaning, including volunteering, experiencing novelty, and focusing on the things that matter to us.  

Here are some additional resources focused on finding joy:

Ingrid Fetell Lee uses her background in industrial design to find joy in aesthetics in this Ted Talk video from 2018.