Welcome to Joy Lab!: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Joy Lab podcast, where we help you uncover and foster your most joyful self. Your hosts, Dr. Henry Emmons and Dr. Aimee Prasek, bring you the ideal mix of soulful and scientifically sound tools to spark your joy, even when it feels dark. When you're ready to experiment with more joy, combine this podcast with the full Joy Lab program over at JoyLab.coach
Hello, I'm Henry Emmons and welcome to Joy Lab.
Aimee: And I'm Aimee Prasek, and today we are starting our month of focus on sympathetic joy. Which can sound kind of weird, so let's first just talk about what it is. Henry, do you want to explain the essence of sympathetic joy and how it can help us?
Henry: Sure, I, you know, I can't help but think that it's the word sympathetic that is sort of hard to get, hard to get our minds around.
So some, sometimes, uh, [00:01:00] people use the term empathic joy or appreciative joy. But I still think it helps to give a little more definition to this. So, basically, sympathetic joy means being happy for the happiness or good fortune of others.
Taking delight in their good fortune. In its ideal form one does this with no envy, no jealousy, just delight. Now, it could be seen as an antidote to jealousy or envy, but I think it's even more than that, and I think that points to how helpful this can be for us. So, in Joy Lab, we talk a lot about cultivating a good heart, which, to me, is just about the deepest, most transformative aspect of our work.
And sympathetic joy is often considered one of the highest [00:02:00] qualities of the heart. It's really, really good stuff. It helps us to let go of the belief that we are separate from one another and that it's every person for themselves, you know, it's just such a harmful belief. And it opens us up to a genuine sense of connection, belonging, of being able to love well.
These are really high qualities, aren't they? And yet, I think it's really important to remember that this is still a skill. So, it's not so different from being able to calm your mind, or learning how to deal with difficult emotions. It might seem like it's a skill. unattainable sometimes. Like, when we're feeling insecure or when jealousy or envy just pop into our minds before we even know that it's hit us.
But ultimately, it really is a skill, just like any other. Which means that if it's [00:03:00] important to us, if we get a little guidance, take some time and do repetition of this practice. We can get better at it.
Aimee: Yeah, this is a work in progress kind of skill. Simple in theory, hard in the field. We need to practice.With that said, let's call out some roadblocks to be aware of so that we can make this practice a little easier. We'll talk about two of these roadblocks over the next two episodes. The first roadblock and our focus today is something called the fallacy of fairness. And the next episode, we'll talk about the fallacy of scarcity. So to give some context here, these fallacies, are also called oftentimes thought distortions. And they often show up in cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT. So CBT is a modality that we use here at Joy [00:04:00] Lab in the podcast and the program.
We apply it in such a way to help us get out of these unhelpful thought spirals. That can snag us and keep us down, really down in our mood, down in our well being, down in our motivation to make changes. So, the fallacy of fairness, one of these thought distortions, is the belief that things should be fair and equal at all times. And I think there can be a hesitancy to really embrace this fallacy as damaging. I mean, it's about fairness or equity, right? And we all want to create a more joyful and equitable world. We're wired for it as a social species, but this fallacy isn't actually about the reality of those real issues. It's when our perception gets distorted, and it actually makes that kind of work to create a more fair and just world more difficult. I think that's why it's so sneaky. [00:05:00] So if we're stuck here, this fallacy dulls our senses because when we think everything in life should be fair, then we're always looking for and finding what's not fair. So If we're always finding unfair things, then we're always blaming external circumstances or causes for whatever makes us feel bad. And having that kind of external locus of control, as it's sometimes called, takes away our power. Clear evidence with that. And most often, we're left blaming others for everything uncomfortable in our lives. And we're also left feeling helpless and unmotivated. Sort of taking it to its extreme here, but we're following down this path. If we get stuck in this fallacy. Sort of on that note this fallacy is also related to something called a victim mentality, and I want to get into that in a future episode.
That's a whole nother conversation. [00:06:00] So, Henry, remember that. Let's talk about that.
Henry: Note to self.
Aimee: Um, so this fallacy, I think the point here really clouds our vision so that when something, really does rise up an unfair thing that we humans caused and that we can change, then we are more likely to miss it. I think that's important to note.
We don't act because it's like part of the sea of unfair things that we've perceived. So we lose that power of discernment to actually see where we can act and then the motivation to take that 1st step. So I want to give a recent example of this fallacy that came up for me and that I think folks can resonate with.
So, I had a really busy week recently. And busy in such a way that I was doing a bunch of stuff for other people, which was good, and I'm glad I did, but I [00:07:00] then needed to make up work for all, all of that extra work I had added in. I needed to sort of work at all these odd hours. So I was just working around the clock and it was over my limit. And so Friday rolls around and I am so ready to sit in my chair and watch as many hours of Netflix as humanly possible. Well, which I was fine with. That was my healthy, restful moment I wanted. And my husband usually does bedtime with our six year old. So they had already headed upstairs and I started to make the most amazing mocktail, which I'll just note, is a preserved lemon, tonic water, olive drink that I love and that has successfully reduced my old fashioned intake.
I think we talked about that a year ago. One of my resolutions, which I am happy to say worked. Maybe I'll put in the show notes. Anyway, so I sit down. I am ready to take that 1st [00:08:00] sip. And then I hear my husband holler down the stairs, Aimee, can you come up here? And it was that tone that I think we all know when somebody sort of shouts concerningly to us. I knew that whatever had happened, that something needed to be done. I needed to see it and I could just feel my mood sink immediately. So I head upstairs and sure enough, our daughter has contracted the lice. It is
Henry: Oh. no.
Aimee: So parents are probably like, Oh, yeah, I know what you're talking about. And then, of course, my head starts to itch because the psychogenic powers of lice are profound. And so we throw our daughter in the bathtub, like an isolation tank of sorts, while my husband heads to get lice treatment. And then I start [00:09:00] pulling off the sheets and, you know, on all the beds, start doing the laundry that I know will take forever, on top of having to pick out those MFing bugs from everyone's hair and this thought surges in me. This is so unfair. And so, and it's getting bigger. So I'm ripping off the sheets on all the beds, pillowcases, and I'm fuming, thinking I worked all week for everyone else and then had to work twice as hard to stay on top of my work for what? To be rewarded with lice. This is so unfair. And then the thought also popped into my head, because this is what we work on. Ah, the fallacy of fairness has arrived, has also came with the lice. So I stopped for a moment and I asked myself, okay, what would be fair? Should everyone have lice? If I have to have [00:10:00] lice now, would it be fair if everyone else had lice too, which seemed ridiculous and terrifying, right? A mass lice infestation would be terrible for all of us. Worse for me as well. So do I wish lice did not ever exist and nobody ever got them? And maybe step back again from this tornado that I was creating of thoughts to think, well, this actually isn't so bad. Okay. There's a simple treatment. We can afford it. We can get it easily. It was probably time to wash the bedding anyway. So I was sort of able to come out of this downward spiral, but just, checking my thoughts for a moment, checking the fallacy. And then I kid you not, here's what happened next. I practiced sympathetic joy. Because I knew a friend of mine had also worked really hard that week and she was going out to celebrate a really awesome accomplishment. She's out of state. So I couldn't go. So FOMO was, was not in the picture. That was probably key. And I probably would have given everybody lice, so it was good I [00:11:00] wasn't there. But I just took a pause for a moment and imagined what her night was like to just like tap into her celebration and how she must have been feeling sort of a bit of pride, healthy pride for her effort, the work she did, and that she could be celebrating with friends who also were proud of her. And it made me feel better. Seriously made me feel better. And so as I picked out lice out of my daughter's head late into the night, we watched a movie. I actually thought, well, this lice party isn't so bad. It's kind of funny actually. So, this is a low stakes event. I get that. But I think these are the types of daily inconveniences that really fuel this fallacy of fairness, if we're not aware of it. Because when we get stuck in that fallacy, then with each louse that pops up, I believe louse is the [00:12:00] singular lice, with each louse, then we'll continue to sort of reinforce that perspective of life being unfair and we'll get really good at interpreting all of these daily events, these daily louses that make us feel bad as being unfair and out of our control. And a real problem here, besides how terrible it feels to constantly feel like we're infected with lice, is that it separates us from others because we see them as perpetrators, actually the cause of our pain, because we think they're doing better than us, and that it's unfair that they don't deserve it.
That's what starts to take hold. So that's my story. That's my aha moment. Do you have anything more to say here, Henry, more about the isolating effects of lice or this fallacy of fairness? How to gain
Henry: There,
there are literally isolating effects from a lice infestation.
Aren't [00:13:00] there? Oh gosh, oh man, that, that's, that's a vivid image.First off, good on you that you could have the capacity in the context of that to think of your friend and, and kind of take joy in her being able to celebrate and all of that.
That's fantastic.It, it also occurs to me that if you'd experienced the lice infestation at another time when you hadn't had so many other things, you know, that pile up of stress that, yes, everybody can relate to, um, you know, You just didn't have the reserves you normally would have. So, totally, totally understandable why you would feel so frustrated and all the more remarkable that you could even, even go there to having some [00:14:00] sympathetic joy in that context.
That's just wonderful.
Aimee: Well, it helped me also, I'll just say to sort of step back is if I got caught in the fallacy of fairness, I would think, ah, this is so unfair, but what it helped me to do as well, step back and realize I burned myself out the
Henry: You, you, yes,
Aimee: I did too much. So without stepping back and actually taking a bit of an assessment, I wouldn't, you know, I'll keep pushing over that line.
So, to the power of stepping out of these thought patterns is profound because then we can realize, oh, wait. There is some control here.
Henry: yeah.
Aimee: I didn't have to push too hard.
Henry: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And, that's also part of the learning, isn't it? Um, you know, we sometimes we simply have to do that. I'm imagining that at that moment in time, it didn't seem as though you had a lot of other choice, but to do all these things. So, balance is really an [00:15:00] unachievable, at least it's, it's unachievable as a permanent state.
Aimee: Hmm.
Henry: It's, it's, for all of us. We're constantly in and out, back and forth. And,I think the best we can do is to keep noticing, keep our awareness like you did, keep practicing, be able to see the humor in it as you did shortly thereafter.
Hopefully, the lice situation is well under control.
Aimee: We'll check in 7 to 10 days, apparently. There's a fallacy of fairness. We'll see what happens in 7 to 10 days. Yeah.
Henry: Yeah, yeah,
You know, um, you did say something earlier that I think is just really important. That, you know, we're, we're always looking through this lens of fairness. It seems like no matter, no matter what kind of struggles or challenges and, and when we do that, when that's our lens, it's simply going to happen that we will find things.[00:16:00]
There are a number of things that are unfair or that certainly seem to be unfair. The mind is so good at what's, at finding what's wrong. It doesn't have to have lice jumping out at you in order to prove that. It's, it, it'll find things. The problem that CBT is trying to address is that it's become second nature for us to do this.
We've just practiced it so much throughout our lives, mostly. Driven, I think, partly by this sense of competition and individuality that is just woven into us so tightly in our culture.So, it's not an easy, it's not an easy thing for us to undo it. We can't wave a magic wand and suddenly stop seeing things as being fair or unfair.
So, we have to make a very conscious choice to do it differently. And then practice, practice, practice. Practice, [00:17:00] practice. And I'm betting, Aimee, that if you hadn't really had some practice under your belt, there's no way that your mind would have gone toward feeling good towards your friend at that moment.
You would have been miserable
Aimee: Yeah.
night, Itching and wishing lice upon everybody else. Absolutely.
Henry: Yeah. Now, it's very hard to do this if our approach is to try to do it individually, every time that we fall back into that old pattern. In other words, it's, every single time we have to pull ourselves out. We would have to be vigilant all the time, always able to step back and see what we're doing.
Doing it like that, one thought at a time, one event at a time is really, really hard. So to me, this is really the power and the beauty of practicing sympathetic joy. It's like taking a major shortcut to this because [00:18:00] it can help us change our underlying beliefs and give us a different lens to see the world with.
You know, we don't have to see the world through this lens of unfairness, we can see it through something else. And maybe, in fact, it's not all about fairness. Maybe there's a kinder, more loving way to see ourselves in relation to others.
Aimee: I love that reframe. Also, what you said, even just about balance, you noted, sort of there's a fallacy of balance that we're
all, Yeah,
a goal of always being balanced. what a Impossible expectation to put on ourselves. And to see, like we do in Joy Lab, as balance as a dance and we're sort of, we're navigating what sometimes take us, like I did, did too much and coming back into a more balanced state and then sort of weaving that through, time and time again. But as you [00:19:00] noted, sympathetic joy gets at this fallacy, this fallacy of fairness, this fallacy of balance. I kind of see it as a slap in the face to wake us up and look around. To step into some joy, to see the light that is still around, just kind of, as you noted, that kindness and goodness that is there, even when things were, might be perceiving as dark and unfair, that there is still joy there.
It's a powerful reframe. and I think it also reminds us that we do not need to sacrifice our joy and our power to this fallacy, to someone else who we think is better off.
Henry: Yeah, that's such a great way to put it, Aimee. We don't have to sacrifice our joy.
In a very real way that's just what we're doing. We're voluntarily giving it up. We're making the choice that fairness in that moment, what we perceive as fairness, is more important to us than joy.
Now, obviously, we're doing that unconsciously most of the time, [00:20:00] but if we can step back and look at it, why would we want to do this to ourselves?
It makes no sense, of course. The mind and the heart are not always aligned with each other. They're not always on the same side, and that can really complicate our lives. If we can bring them together, when they're in alignment with one another, the world around us just tends to be a friendlier, more joyful place.
Aimee: Yeah. The mind and the heart are not always on the same side. That's it, right? Um, and like you said, we can bring them together. That's what we do here. I hope you all feel that, to trust yourself through this process as we uncover joy. We've all got powerful tools right now, that can help us come back into alignment, just like you noted, Henry. There are, are two quotes that I think I want to end [00:21:00] us with. The first is a face slap for the fallacy. And then the second one might feel better. So this first one is from Ralph Waldo Emerson.Let's try to listen with an open mind and open heart. Here it is. "Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted." Oof, something about that just wakes me up. And second, some motivation to do this thoughtful work from Dr. Margaret Mead, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
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