Minidose 16 How do I find joy during hard times?
The holiday season is a time of gratitude and family, but it’s also a season that brings up complex emotions: grief, loneliness, toxic family dynamics, comparison, and the pressure to match a certain energy. In this episode, we explore the real, often-overlooked challenge of navigating the season when it feels less like a celebration and more like survival.
If you're struggling, it’s okay to start small. Small joys, or “glimmers,” can be grounding—whether it’s connecting with nature, savoring music, finding laughter, or escaping through a good book. Using inspiration from personal stories, the “broaden and build” theory, and gentle practices that helped me find light in hard times, we’ll cover how to build a foundation of resilience through small moments of choice. You don’t have to feel happy every moment to build a life filled with joy.
In this episode I cover:
Acknowledgment of Complex Holiday Emotions
How to Handle Society's Avoidance of Suffering
Starting Small with Comfort and Support
Exploring “Glimmers” and Moments of Joy
Introduction to the Broaden-and-Build Theory
Choosing Joy as an Act of Resilience
This episode is an invitation to find peace within the complexity of the holiday season and give yourself permission to rewrite what joy means for you during this time.
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Listen to full episode :
Your prescription for living well, dose for this week: Whatever brings you joy — reading a book, getting out in nature, listening to music, watching a good movie, hanging out with loved ones, journaling, or any small moments — having a cup of coffee or tea, looking at trees outside your window, tiny rainbows from a suncatcher … will help you in moments of challenge. Lighten your heart 🤍 in any way you can. Glimmers (trigger’s opposite) can help us feel moments of joy + lightness. 🍃
EPISODE RESOURCES:
Glimmers ✨ are small moments of joy or peace that arise from appreciating simple things like the colors of a rainbow, the scent of a flower, or the sound of the rain.
Glimmers and triggers are opposites in that glimmers spark positive feelings while triggers spark negative ones.
The practice of noticing and appreciating glimmers can cue your nervous system to relax and have a positive effect on your mental health.
To increase the odds of noticing glimmers, spend time in places that nourish you, connect with people you enjoy, limit screen time, and practice mindfulness.
What Is Broaden and Build Theory?
Barbara Frederickson first proposed the broaden-and-build theory as a way to address the lack of research on positive emotions and the greater emphasis on negative ones. The broaden-and-build theory suggests that experiencing positive emotions helps people expand their immediate, momentary thoughts to help strengthen their psychological, social, cognitive, and physical resources. In other words, positive emotions help increase awareness, boost coping ability, and improve resilience.
A list of positive emotions that you might recognize from your own day-to-day life. 🌿
