The Art of Joy: How to Train Your Brain to Spot the Good Stuff
We’ve all been there. You get to the end of a long, chaotic day, crawl into bed, and your brain immediately starts playing a highlight reel of everything that went wrong. The passive-aggressive email. The looming deadline. The global news cycle.
It is incredibly easy to get bogged down in what I call "winter energy" - that heavy, sluggish state where we are just surviving, bogged down by fear, busyness, and the sheer weight of getting through the day.
When we talk about finding "joy" in these moments, people often roll their eyes. They assume it means toxic positivity—forcing a fake smile and pretending everything is perfect. But true joy isn’t a permanent state of bliss. Joy is found in micro-moments. It’s the perfect temperature of your morning coffee, a funny text from a friend, or the way the sun hits a tree on your drive home.
The problem? We don’t notice them. And because we don’t notice them, we don’t recall them.
Fortunately, noticing joy isn’t a personality trait; it’s a cognitive skill. And you can train your brain to get really, really good at it.
The Science: Meeting Your Brain’s Filter
To understand why we miss joy, we have to look at a tiny cluster of cells at the base of your brain stem called the Reticular Activating System (RAS).
Think of the RAS as your brain’s personal bouncer. Every single second, your senses are bombarded with millions of pieces of data. If your brain processed all of it, you’d go into sensory overload. So, the RAS filters the world based on what you deem important.
How the RAS works: If you decide you want to buy a red car, suddenly you start seeing red cars everywhere. They didn't magically multiply; your RAS just "value-tagged" red cars and started letting them past the bouncer.
Right now, if you are stressed or anxious, your RAS is value-tagging threats. It’s actively hunting for things to validate your stress. To find joy, we have to intentionally change the bouncer’s guest list.
Step 1: Cultivating Awareness (The Daylight Hunt)
You cannot recall joy at night if you didn't pay attention to it during the day. Building this skill requires pausing in real-time.
Look for the "Micro": Lower the bar for what qualifies as joy. It’s not a promotion or a vacation. It’s a warm shower, a dog wagging its tail, or a song you love coming on the radio.
The 5-Second Anchor: When you catch a micro-moment of joy, don't just rush past it. Pause for five seconds. Take a breath and let yourself actually feel it. This physically alerts your RAS: “Hey, look at this. This matters to us.”
Step 2: The Evening Reflection (Value-Tagging)
The real magic happens at the end of the day. This is where you use a structured gratitude practice to lock those moments into your long-term memory. Before you go to sleep, ask yourself three specific questions:
What brought me joy today? (Be specific: “The way the barista smiled,” not just “coffee.”)
Where did I feel it? (Did you laugh? Did your shoulders drop? Connect it to the body.)
What am I looking forward to tomorrow? (This primes your RAS for the next day's hunt.)
The more consistently you do this, the more attention your brain naturally gives to these moments. You are rewiring your neural pathways.
This is a Skill, Not a Script
Cultivating joy isn't about ignoring the hardships of the world or pretending your stress doesn't exist. It’s about building hope.
By actively training your RAS to spot and value-tag these tiny glimmers, you build emotional resilience. You prove to yourself that even on the heaviest, busiest days, light still manages to peak through.
So, tonight, before you close your eyes, challenge your inner bouncer. What micro-moment of joy are you going to let in?
Have a beautiful day, Kate 🪷
P.S. A couple of quick updates before I go...
The Elemental Circle: Our next live group journey begins on July 21st. We still have a couple of spots left if you feel called to join us for this deep dive. Link here
Need a quick reset right now? If you're not ready for a live circle but want a gentle shift, my mini-course, The Inner Thread, is always available on the website for you to explore at your own pace. Link here