Latest / Internal Insights / How to Train Yourself to Notice Joy Before It Disappears
Transcript
- Ted Thao: Welcome to Internal Insights, a quick, honest conversation about mental health in about five minutes or less. I'm your host Ted Thao, a licensed professional counselor, and the owner of Internal Insights Therapy in San Antonio, Texas. Every episode, we take one idea from therapy, trauma, anxiety, relationships, identity, and talk about it plainly. No jargon, no fluff, just something real. Let's get into it. Think about the last time something genuinely good happened. Maybe you got a text that made you smile, or you finished something you were proud of, or someone said something kind to you out of nowhere. Now think about how long you actually let yourself feel that before your brain moved on. For most of us, it's just seconds, barely a breath. We are much better at noticing when something's wrong than when we notice something is right. That's not a character flaw. It is how we are built. Our nervous system has evolved to scan for threats because missing a threat could get us hurt. Missing a nice moment never put anyone in danger. So our brains never develop the same urgency on around holding on to it. Psychologists sometimes call this the negativity bias. And that pretty much just means that we hold on to all the bad stuff and they stick like glue and all the good stuff just slides off like it was never there. And here's the thing though emotions, whether positive or negative, are information. When we feel anxious, that anxiety is telling us something that needs attention. When you feel proud or relieved or content, that is also telling you something. It is telling you this moment mattered. This thing you did counts. This relationship is giving you something real. If we only ever paused for the negative emotions and rushed past the positive ones, we never see the full picture of our lives. We just remember the hard stretch of the year in detail and barely remember the good weekend that came right after it. And the thing is All it really is is just being present with the good stuff. The same way you might practice being present with the hard feelings. Mindfulness is not only for pain and stress, is just as much about noticing joy while it is happening instead of letting it pass unattended. And a big piece of this is giving yourself permission. Permission to actually feel good. Without immediately questioning whether you deserve it or not, or waiting for the shoe to drop, or rushing onto the next task. And it sounds small, but pausing even for a few seconds to notice a good feeling in your body is what allows us to actually register it instead of letting it slide right past you. Someone will tell me a lot of the times that they feel guilty for slowing down or to enjoy something good, like they are being lazy or tempting fate somehow, like the feeling good will not last, so why even bother sitting with it? And the reality is pausing for a good feeling is not di it's not denial. And it's not naive. It's not pretending the hard parts of life are not real. You can actually you can absolutely be someone who has been through a lot, who carries real grief or worry, and still gives yourself permission to feel a moment of joy without canceling out the hard stuff. Feelings are not a scoreboard where one cancels the other. They exist side by side. And honestly, the ability to be present with the good things fully is often what gives us strength to keep facing the hard things. It is not a distraction from resilience. It's the part that actually builds it. If you grew up in a household or a culture where showing joy openly was not really the norm, or where the message was that Focusing on the hardship and duty mattered more than feeling good, that guilt makes even more sense. It was probably never modeled for you. That does not mean you are doing something wrong by learning it now. So here is something to try this week. The next time something good happens, even something small, give it three seconds or longer than you normally would. Notice where you are feeling it in your body. Give yourself permission to let it be real before you move on. You do not have to earn that pause. You do not have to justify it. It is just as much a part of being human as the hard days are. That's it for this episode of Internal Insights. If this gave you something to sit with, or just made you feel a little less alone, that's the whole point. This isn't a replacement for therapy, but if you're looking for support, you can find me at Internal Insights Therapy in San Antonio, Texas. Thank you for spending five minutes I'll see you next time.