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Last week, in Part 1 of our Cultivate the Positive series, we explored the transient nature of happiness and I showed you three ways to boost and prolong happy emotions. If you missed it, go to mindful15.com/happiness. Today, we’ll look at strategies for fostering joy.
The dictionary definition, “joy is a feeling of great happiness”, suggests that joy is just the next notch up on the happiness scale. Psychologists tend to look at it differently. They suggest happiness is a positive emotion that is caused by external conditions being just right, whereas joy is a positive emotion generated from within.
Because joy is cultivated internally, it can be more consistent than happiness. Some even refer to it as a state of being, or an approach to life. Compassion.com says happiness is something that happens to us, but “joy is a choice purposefully made.” Unlike happiness, joy can share space with negative emotions. It’s possible, for example, to be sad and joyful at the same time.

Peaceful Moment of the Week: Mule Deer, Elk Island National Park, Alberta
 

The best thing about joy is that it is a skill you can learn. It’s is founded on knowing and accepting who you are, on making peace with yourself. That peace can then be extended to others. Joy also requires the integrity that occurs when your actions are consistent with your beliefs.
Here are three strategies for cultivating joy:
Treat yourself with care
Pay attention to the way you talk to yourself. Are you harsh, critical, or abusive? Many of us are. We tell ourselves horribly mean things, things we’d never say to another person: “you’ll never amount to anything,” “you’re ugly,” “you’re worthless.” I don’t even know you and I know none of these things are true!
Treating yourself kindly takes practice. You first need to be mindful of self-talk and self-judgement. You may have to practice noticing your self-talk for a while before you can move on to the next step. Be patient, this practice will pay off.
When you’re able to reliably notice yourself treating you badly, you can apply patience, compassion, and kindness.
Kindness begins with better self-talk. As soon as you hear yourself say something unkind, stop. Deliberately say to yourself, “no, that’s not true.” Instead of criticizing, be honest with yourself. “No, you know that’s not true. You’re not stupid. In fact, you taught yourself how to knit, didn’t you?” Or, “no, that’s unreasonable. It’s true you made a mistake this afternoon, but that doesn’t mean you’re hopeless. Everyone makes mistakes now and again.”
Go ahead, talk back to that awful voice in your head. Tell it you deserve better. You might even try to trivialize it by giving it a silly name like the Catty Critic, or the Judging Jerk. Mock it, giving it a silly voice, too. Send it every signal that you’re not listening any more.
Compassion comes in when you begin to allow yourself to be less than perfect. If a friend forgot to call you, you would probably cut her some slack. You’d realize that something might’ve come up to distract her, for example. Or, you might forgive her for making a mistake, because you know nobody’s perfect. Start treating yourself like a good friend. This doesn’t mean you have to excuse or dismiss your own bad behaviour, but you can apply compassion. Let’s say you forgot to call your friend, as promised, and it’s the third time you’ve done this in the last week. You can acknowledge that you have not been paying...