June 3, 2025 • 21 mins
Remember when you used to laugh until you cried? For many of us, those moments have become increasingly rare. Joy doesn't simply slip away—it gets systematically stripped from our lives without our awareness.
This eye-opening exploration reveals the three hidden thieves that have stolen your joy. First, the deeply ingrained belief that joy must be earned after productivity, usefulness, or taking care of everyone else. From childhood messages about finishing homework before play to adult guilt about prioritising pleasure, we've absorbed the toxic idea that joy is frivolous—a reward rather than a necessity. Second, your nervous system has become addicted to stress chemicals, trapping you in a state of hypervigilance where there's simply no room for softness, release, or joy. When you're constantly braced for the next emergency, joy becomes physiologically impossible. Finally, the trap of overachievement masks your joylessness with constant busyness, perfectionism, and the relentless pursuit of external validation.
The painful irony? Joy isn't inefficient—it's rocket fuel for high performance, leadership, and magnetism. In our increasingly AI-driven world, your capacity for genuine human emotion is your greatest asset. Joy isn't what happens after you fix everything; it's what allows you to feel alive while everything else is unfolding.
Ready to reclaim what's rightfully yours? Join the Return to Radiance 21-day challenge starting June 9th. Through simple, powerful practices in just two minutes daily, you'll reconnect with what makes you feel most alive—no fluff, no pressure, no fakeness. Your journey back to joy starts now.
To view the Transcript from this week's episode, visit our Balance & Beyond Podcast webpage: https://www.balanceinstitute.com/podcast/2025/100
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
my chip microphone.
(00:31):
Okay, a few years ago, someoneasked me when was the last time
you laughed until you cried, andI couldn't answer, not because
I didn't want to, because Igenuinely couldn't remember.
That was the moment that it hitme.
Joy hadn't just slipped away,it had systematically been
(00:52):
stripped from my life.
In today's episode, we're goingto talk about exactly what
stole your joy and how to takeit back.
That's right.
Your joy has been stolen andhere's the kicker without you
even realizing it.
So today I'm going to sharewith you three things that have
(01:13):
stolen your joy.
There's a very good chance thatsome of this is going to take
you by surprise.
First up, often I talk aboutweeds in your garden and the
beliefs that hold us back.
Well, joy is something that manyof us have been taught that you
have to earn.
You have to earn your joy, youhave to be useful, and then you
(01:38):
can have fun.
This often starts really earlyin life.
I remember coming home fromschool and saying I want to go
out and play.
It's like no, you have to doyour homework first, you have to
clean your room first andunintentionally as parents we
can sometimes do this you wantthem to do the thing and then
they can go play and have fun.
They have to do the seriousthing and then they can be silly
(01:59):
.
If kids often try to slip inbeing silly in the middle of
doing a task, we beat it out ofthem.
Like no time for silliness,come on, like we got somewhere
to be, don't you know?
We're on the clock.
And this messaging that we getas a child often then carries
through.
Particularly, if you hadparents who were quite serious,
(02:22):
who weren't sort of allsilliness and giggles, if they
were just that was theirpersonality and that was how
they parented, then joy becomesan indulgence.
It becomes something frivolousthat when there is a little bit
of space, then okay.
When it doesn't matter, whenyou're on the clock, then you
can have this thing out and weknow on the clock, then you can
(02:47):
have this thing.
Overlay that with the messagingthat women have also received
subtly and sometimes overtly,around being helpful, being
responsible.
Joy comes after you take careof everyone else.
If you can relate to feelingguilty for sitting, still, if
(03:08):
you get triggered or eye roll atpeople who are silly or you
consider them frivolous orthey're throwing their life away
in the pursuit of pleasure, letme guess you probably have the
belief that when you've got allyour ducks in a row, then you'll
go and do the fun things,You'll work your butt off for
(03:29):
your entire career and you'll gohave tons of fun in retirement.
Those beliefs are allindicators that this is a belief
that runs very, very deep.
For you Now, earning it canmean you have to earn it and you
have to do something productivefirst, but earning it can also
(03:52):
be around your perceived versionof credibility.
So there's somebody in my worldwho completely triggers me.
She is someone who dancesaround in a glitter jumpsuit,
has had all this success, and Isit there and say you're a yoga
teacher and you have noexperience.
(04:14):
You haven't earned the right tohave that much fun, and it was
only after unpacking some of myown work around.
Why am I so triggered by her?
Why do I sit there and go, ah,you don't deserve this, you
haven't worked hard enough forit.
How can you be having fun?
And then all this success comes.
That's not how it works.
But what if it did?
(04:36):
What if joy and fun andfrivolity and humor and
contentment and happiness?
We're not rewards.
We're not things that come atthe end of something else, at
the end of something productive,or at the end of something
worthy, or the end of a degree,or whatever you believe has to
(04:58):
happen in order for you to havethis critical emotion that is
rocket fuel for high performance, and it's the reason that we
live.
We, as humans, are given thisnervous system and these
beautiful emotional states thatlight us up, that make us feel
(05:21):
human, that make us feel alive,that make us feel human, that
make us feel alive, and all youhave to do is be around a child
who is inherently silly, wholaughs all the time,
unencumbered at nothing, to knowthat we're born this way.
It's beaten out of us, it issuffocated from us, and it's
(05:50):
done so subtly and so slowlythat very often we don't even
realize it until it's completelygone or it's completely stifled
, and so it's only you know,this little sort of random thing
that happens.
But even then we contain itbecause too much to do.
Come on, get in the car.
No time for silliness.
I remember I had that momentwhen one of my daughters is
particularly silly and Iremember yelling at her saying
get in the car.
(06:11):
And she's like mom, I'm justbeing silly.
I remember saying to her.
We don't have time to be silly.
What message is that sendingher?
Her nervous system, my nervoussystem?
Why the hell are we here?
If it's just all about gettingsomewhere, getting rushing,
getting to school, getting towork, getting to wherever,
what's the point?
We all harp on about the fridgemagnet that says enjoy the
(06:33):
journey, but if there's no spacein that journey for what
matters, then what are we doing?
Let's talk about reason numbertwo that your joy has been
stolen.
Part of this wiring thathappens conditioning from a
young age that joy has to beearned and you have to do other
(06:54):
things and you have to put otherpeople first.
As part of that journey, yournervous system becomes addicted
to stress and cortisol.
It's really hard to feel joywhen your body is stuck in
survival mode.
When we are living this life ofbusyness run by the clock
(07:16):
back-to-back meetings, calendarsyou know living life on a
knife's edge our nervous systembecomes wired for hypervigilance
.
By this I mean it's alwayslooking for what's the next
thing that could destabilizethis knife's edge way that I'm
running my life.
So anything that takes up alittle extra space than you
(07:40):
think you can give it, nevermindthe fact that you're
procrastinating, or never mindthat it's not available for you
to rest because you feel guiltyor worry that you've missed
something.
Your nervous system, then, isstuck in this state.
And what's really interesting,when you learn more about
(08:00):
feelings and nervous systems andhow all this works, is your
body actually gets addicted tothe chemical state of stress.
And our body's main goal, ourbrain's main goal, is to keep
you alive, and it wants to dothat today.
How it went yesterday, becauseyesterday you survived and
you're still here.
So what your body and brainwill actually do is find things
(08:24):
to make you stressed about, evenif you're not stressed, because
it doesn't know how to sit incalm, it doesn't know how to sit
in rest, it doesn't know how tofind room for joy, because when
there is so much cortisol,you're bracing, you're living in
(08:45):
fight or flight.
You've got your breath held andwhat joy is is it's an exhale,
and your nervous system's goingmm-mm-mm.
Can't do that.
We can't exhale because if weexhale, we're going to drop a
ball.
Have you seen what we've had todo this week?
We've had to make lunches,we've had to respond to a
meeting.
(09:06):
We're snapping at a child.
I remember snapping at mydaughter when she asked for a
hug.
I literally pushed her away.
When she was younger I was likeno, no, no, no, no, no, I'm
making lunch.
That is my nervous system going.
There is no time for softnessright now.
It is not safe to be soft, it'snot safe to stop, it's not safe
to rest, because cortisol isthe only way I know my good old
(09:30):
sympathetic nervous system iswired.
It's completely dominant and myparasympathetic system, which
is my rest and digest, can't geta look in edgewise.
This is when you have tounderstand that the work here is
yes, you've got to rewire yourbeliefs.
You've got to believe that youdon't have to earn your joy or
(09:50):
your rest, that all of thesethings are rocket fuel for high
performance, and you have totrain your nervous system to
actually be okay with it, toactually make the space for it,
to actually soften for it, andrealize that if you don't have
joy in your life, if you don'thave lightness, then you are
going to be not only a very,very strong candidate for
(10:13):
burnout, but you're going tostart wondering what the hell am
I doing?
What is this all for?
There is no fun in life, thereis no joy.
This is something that we hearall the time from clients and
even women who are thinking ofcoming into our world is I don't
know what I'm doing this for.
All I ever feel is resentment,frustration, anger, guilt, shame
(10:33):
, regret.
I never feel any of the goodemotions because how our bodies
work is emotions come as a box,and when you are numb and when
you are stuck in survival mode,we want to ignore that gnawing
feeling of resentment that sitsthere and festers in your
(10:55):
relationships.
We don't give ourselvespermission to feel our anger.
So many women tell me thatthey're like this damn wall and
they've got it all shoved insideand they are terrified that if
they open one little crack, thatthe whole thing is going to
come gushing out, they're goingto fall into a puddle and won't
be able to function.
(11:15):
That, my friend, is not a wayto live, and neither is waiting
for the damn wall to burst.
When you have to lock yourselfin your bedroom for five days
because you can't stop crying,you can't stop shaking and you
can't move, that is called abreakdown and that is called a
burnout episode.
That is simply your nervoussystem going.
The damn is full, the damn isfull, the damn is full.
(11:37):
I can't take it anymore and youwon't let me release the
pressure.
And so we have to learn toregulate our nervous system.
We have to learn to feel safein joy, and the way we begin to
do that is to find micro momentsof joy, to tell our body it's
(11:58):
safe to laugh, to tell our bodyit's safe to soften for a hug or
a silly video that someone sentyou, or to laugh at a joke or
whatever it may be.
So you've got to train yournervous system, otherwise there
will be no room for joy.
So your nervous system has alsostolen your joy, and it's
(12:19):
sneaky because we don't realizethese become our natural state.
And lastly, this is a biggie.
This is one that I personallyhave probably fallen into in
time, and I call this the trapof overachievement.
I am someone, probably like you, who likes to achieve.
(12:42):
I like hitting goals, I likesetting big goals good old, big,
hairy, audacious goals.
I value efficiency, and whenyou are wired to achieve, when
you are stuck in wanting toconstantly achieve, to
constantly be better and overlaythat with this I've got to earn
(13:04):
my rest, the joy gets buriedunder this pursuit of enoughness
.
Perfectionist, eat your heartout here Perfect plans, perfect
houses, perfect families, eventhough your quest to meet the
ruthlessly high standards thatyou set for yourself can never
actually be met, because that'sthe whole point, and so you set
(13:24):
for yourself can never actuallybe met, because that's the whole
point, and so you constantlyfeel like a failure in every
area of your life.
This overachievement that we,the bar that we set ourselves
ends up being a huge amount ofoverfunctioning.
Is it any wonder, then, we'vegot overfunctioning, striving
for overachievement in a nervoussystem that is trapped in
(13:47):
hypervigilance?
Well, of course, there is noroom for anything, because your
internal and entire focus isabout proving yourself, proving
yourself worthy, provingyourself valuable, proving to
others that you're helpful.
It's about being perfect in thethings that you believe are
(14:09):
important to you, which usuallyis everything, and it's about
protecting, then, your nervoussystem from failure, from
letting people down, from guilt,from saying no and worrying
about everybody else's feelings.
All of this is a hyper focus oneverything outside of you.
So joy isn't on the agenda.
(14:31):
There ain't any room for that,because it's now a distraction.
It's inefficient.
I've got things to do.
I've got things to achieve.
I've got really, really bigthings to achieve, so how on
earth could me being frivolousand having some fun.
There's no room for that.
We mask the joylessness withbusyness.
(14:51):
We spend our lives doingachieving, ticking things off
lists, being ruled by dopaminehits, but we never actually feel
anything.
Because if we're not busy doingstuff, then we have to sit and
realize that on the inside we'renumb and underneath the numb we
(15:15):
often feel empty, and we don'tlike that feeling.
We don't like that feeling thatwe don't have enough joy in our
life.
We don't want to admit that toourselves, and so we find
something else to do.
The laundry never ends, theinbox never ends, the life admin
never ends, and so you can tellyourself this beautifully
logical story.
(15:36):
I don't have time for that.
I don't have time for that atall.
And this comes down to what Iopened with.
When a friend asked me when Iwas deep in my burnout stage,
when was the last time youlaughed until you cried?
And another way she said itwhen was the last time you
laughed until your pelvic floorgave away?
(15:56):
I was like, well, that made melaugh.
And if you can't answer that,that if you don't know when, the
last time that you came homefrom being somewhere or watching
something and your cheeks hurtfrom all the smiling, from all
the muscles that you've had andyou've got these beautiful smile
(16:17):
lines.
They might be wrinkles, butthey're smile lines, they're joy
lines under your eyes becauseyour cheeks have moved up so
much.
There's a difference between afull body expression of joy,
where your eyes light up and themuscles under your eyes
actually move, versus those fakesmiles like the model smiles
where, yeah, the mouth goes upbut it's not really felt, it's
(16:40):
just a fake.
Yeah hi, yeah, hi.
Nice to see you too.
Meanwhile you're going idiot.
Don't like you stealing all myideas.
Joy isn't efficient.
Believe it or not.
Joy is the thing that givesyour ambition depth.
It's what is rocket fuel foryour magnetism.
(17:05):
It's rocket fuel for yourleadership.
It makes others want to followyou.
I haven't talked about DebbieDowner.
I've worked for a few DebbieDowners and they're not fun to
be around.
They're not nice to be around.
Yes, you'll go and ask themsomething.
They can give you a veryefficient apply.
But when they never ask youabout what you do on the weekend
and they are purely allbusiness, there is not one ounce
(17:29):
of crack of that hardenedarmour that they have of
themselves.
You start wondering you're a bitof a machine here.
I don't know who you are, andespecially if we start thinking
about where the world is goingin the next few years the
incredibly rapid rise of AI joyis fundamentally what makes us
(17:53):
human.
You are never going to befaster than a machine.
You're never going to be fasterthan a robot and we are going
to start seeing all the get shitdone women out there terrified
of how AI is going to start toreplace them.
What it can't replace is humanemotion you making somebody else
(18:14):
feel joy.
Joy is infectious in a good way.
You can rise people up.
You make them feel good aboutbeing with you, about asking you
for insight or input.
People invite you placesbecause you raise the vibration
of a room.
They prove this with sciencethat often the most influential
(18:36):
people I'm not saying they'rethere kind of singing happy,
happy, joy, joy and kumbaya, andthat's our way of fluffing joy
and saying it's frivolous andwe're all going to sit around
and sing kumbaya.
And that's not what I'm talkingabout here.
I'm talking about that internallight inside of you where you
love your life, where you'reloving this moment, where you
(18:59):
feel that warmth inside yourheart of yes.
This is why I'm here.
This is what it is all for.
So today I want you to walk awaywith some new beliefs that joy
isn't what happens after you fixeverything, after you do
(19:20):
everything.
Joy is what happens and whatallows you to live and to feel
alive while everything else isstill unfolding.
If this episode speaks to you,if you have just realized oh my
goodness, I have suffocated myjoy, it has been stolen and,
(19:40):
most importantly, I am ready totake it back.
If you are done with it beingsuffocated under the weight of
to-do lists and responsibilityand deadlines, then come and
join me in Return to Radiance.
This is a 21-day challenge inbite-sized chunks, aimed to help
(20:01):
women exactly like you reclaimjoy.
This isn't about falsepositivity, fake smiles, some
random affirmations that I'mgoing to make you say.
This is about simple, powerfulpractices in two minutes a day
that are going to help youreconnect to what makes you feel
most alive no fluff, nopressure, no fakeness, no waffle
(20:25):
.
This is just presence that youdon't have to earn, that your
nervous system can start toreceive, because it's going to
be in micro doses, and where youdon't have to be hypervigilant,
because everybody here is likeyou.
You can remember what it's liketo feel again.
So come and join us.
This will be 21 days.
That is not going to befrivolous.
(20:47):
This is going to be rocket fuelfor your performance, for your
aliveness and for the rest ofyour life.
Come join us.
You can visitbalanceinstitutecom forward,
slash, return or we will put thelink in the show notes.
We start june 9th, so get inthere.
There's already joy happening.
Look forward to seeing youthere.
my chip microphone.
(00:31):
Okay, a few years ago, someoneasked me when was the last time
you laughed until you cried, andI couldn't answer, not because
I didn't want to, because Igenuinely couldn't remember.
That was the moment that it hitme.
Joy hadn't just slipped away,it had systematically been
(00:52):
stripped from my life.
In today's episode, we're goingto talk about exactly what
stole your joy and how to takeit back.
That's right.
Your joy has been stolen andhere's the kicker without you
even realizing it.
So today I'm going to sharewith you three things that have
(01:13):
stolen your joy.
There's a very good chance thatsome of this is going to take
you by surprise.
First up, often I talk aboutweeds in your garden and the
beliefs that hold us back.
Well, joy is something that manyof us have been taught that you
have to earn.
You have to earn your joy, youhave to be useful, and then you
(01:38):
can have fun.
This often starts really earlyin life.
I remember coming home fromschool and saying I want to go
out and play.
It's like no, you have to doyour homework first, you have to
clean your room first andunintentionally as parents we
can sometimes do this you wantthem to do the thing and then
they can go play and have fun.
They have to do the seriousthing and then they can be silly
(01:59):
.
If kids often try to slip inbeing silly in the middle of
doing a task, we beat it out ofthem.
Like no time for silliness,come on, like we got somewhere
to be, don't you know?
We're on the clock.
And this messaging that we getas a child often then carries
through.
Particularly, if you hadparents who were quite serious,
(02:22):
who weren't sort of allsilliness and giggles, if they
were just that was theirpersonality and that was how
they parented, then joy becomesan indulgence.
It becomes something frivolousthat when there is a little bit
of space, then okay.
When it doesn't matter, whenyou're on the clock, then you
can have this thing out and weknow on the clock, then you can
(02:47):
have this thing.
Overlay that with the messagingthat women have also received
subtly and sometimes overtly,around being helpful, being
responsible.
Joy comes after you take careof everyone else.
If you can relate to feelingguilty for sitting, still, if
(03:08):
you get triggered or eye roll atpeople who are silly or you
consider them frivolous orthey're throwing their life away
in the pursuit of pleasure, letme guess you probably have the
belief that when you've got allyour ducks in a row, then you'll
go and do the fun things,You'll work your butt off for
(03:29):
your entire career and you'll gohave tons of fun in retirement.
Those beliefs are allindicators that this is a belief
that runs very, very deep.
For you Now, earning it canmean you have to earn it and you
have to do something productivefirst, but earning it can also
(03:52):
be around your perceived versionof credibility.
So there's somebody in my worldwho completely triggers me.
She is someone who dancesaround in a glitter jumpsuit,
has had all this success, and Isit there and say you're a yoga
teacher and you have noexperience.
(04:14):
You haven't earned the right tohave that much fun, and it was
only after unpacking some of myown work around.
Why am I so triggered by her?
Why do I sit there and go, ah,you don't deserve this, you
haven't worked hard enough forit.
How can you be having fun?
And then all this success comes.
That's not how it works.
But what if it did?
(04:36):
What if joy and fun andfrivolity and humor and
contentment and happiness?
We're not rewards.
We're not things that come atthe end of something else, at
the end of something productive,or at the end of something
worthy, or the end of a degree,or whatever you believe has to
(04:58):
happen in order for you to havethis critical emotion that is
rocket fuel for high performance, and it's the reason that we
live.
We, as humans, are given thisnervous system and these
beautiful emotional states thatlight us up, that make us feel
(05:21):
human, that make us feel alive,that make us feel human, that
make us feel alive, and all youhave to do is be around a child
who is inherently silly, wholaughs all the time,
unencumbered at nothing, to knowthat we're born this way.
It's beaten out of us, it issuffocated from us, and it's
(05:50):
done so subtly and so slowlythat very often we don't even
realize it until it's completelygone or it's completely stifled
, and so it's only you know,this little sort of random thing
that happens.
But even then we contain itbecause too much to do.
Come on, get in the car.
No time for silliness.
I remember I had that momentwhen one of my daughters is
particularly silly and Iremember yelling at her saying
get in the car.
(06:11):
And she's like mom, I'm justbeing silly.
I remember saying to her.
We don't have time to be silly.
What message is that sendingher?
Her nervous system, my nervoussystem?
Why the hell are we here?
If it's just all about gettingsomewhere, getting rushing,
getting to school, getting towork, getting to wherever,
what's the point?
We all harp on about the fridgemagnet that says enjoy the
(06:33):
journey, but if there's no spacein that journey for what
matters, then what are we doing?
Let's talk about reason numbertwo that your joy has been
stolen.
Part of this wiring thathappens conditioning from a
young age that joy has to beearned and you have to do other
(06:54):
things and you have to put otherpeople first.
As part of that journey, yournervous system becomes addicted
to stress and cortisol.
It's really hard to feel joywhen your body is stuck in
survival mode.
When we are living this life ofbusyness run by the clock
(07:16):
back-to-back meetings, calendarsyou know living life on a
knife's edge our nervous systembecomes wired for hypervigilance
.
By this I mean it's alwayslooking for what's the next
thing that could destabilizethis knife's edge way that I'm
running my life.
So anything that takes up alittle extra space than you
(07:40):
think you can give it, nevermindthe fact that you're
procrastinating, or never mindthat it's not available for you
to rest because you feel guiltyor worry that you've missed
something.
Your nervous system, then, isstuck in this state.
And what's really interesting,when you learn more about
(08:00):
feelings and nervous systems andhow all this works, is your
body actually gets addicted tothe chemical state of stress.
And our body's main goal, ourbrain's main goal, is to keep
you alive, and it wants to dothat today.
How it went yesterday, becauseyesterday you survived and
you're still here.
So what your body and brainwill actually do is find things
(08:24):
to make you stressed about, evenif you're not stressed, because
it doesn't know how to sit incalm, it doesn't know how to sit
in rest, it doesn't know how tofind room for joy, because when
there is so much cortisol,you're bracing, you're living in
(08:45):
fight or flight.
You've got your breath held andwhat joy is is it's an exhale,
and your nervous system's goingmm-mm-mm.
Can't do that.
We can't exhale because if weexhale, we're going to drop a
ball.
Have you seen what we've had todo this week?
We've had to make lunches,we've had to respond to a
meeting.
(09:06):
We're snapping at a child.
I remember snapping at mydaughter when she asked for a
hug.
I literally pushed her away.
When she was younger I was likeno, no, no, no, no, no, I'm
making lunch.
That is my nervous system going.
There is no time for softnessright now.
It is not safe to be soft, it'snot safe to stop, it's not safe
to rest, because cortisol isthe only way I know my good old
(09:30):
sympathetic nervous system iswired.
It's completely dominant and myparasympathetic system, which
is my rest and digest, can't geta look in edgewise.
This is when you have tounderstand that the work here is
yes, you've got to rewire yourbeliefs.
You've got to believe that youdon't have to earn your joy or
(09:50):
your rest, that all of thesethings are rocket fuel for high
performance, and you have totrain your nervous system to
actually be okay with it, toactually make the space for it,
to actually soften for it, andrealize that if you don't have
joy in your life, if you don'thave lightness, then you are
going to be not only a very,very strong candidate for
(10:13):
burnout, but you're going tostart wondering what the hell am
I doing?
What is this all for?
There is no fun in life, thereis no joy.
This is something that we hearall the time from clients and
even women who are thinking ofcoming into our world is I don't
know what I'm doing this for.
All I ever feel is resentment,frustration, anger, guilt, shame
(10:33):
, regret.
I never feel any of the goodemotions because how our bodies
work is emotions come as a box,and when you are numb and when
you are stuck in survival mode,we want to ignore that gnawing
feeling of resentment that sitsthere and festers in your
(10:55):
relationships.
We don't give ourselvespermission to feel our anger.
So many women tell me thatthey're like this damn wall and
they've got it all shoved insideand they are terrified that if
they open one little crack, thatthe whole thing is going to
come gushing out, they're goingto fall into a puddle and won't
be able to function.
(11:15):
That, my friend, is not a wayto live, and neither is waiting
for the damn wall to burst.
When you have to lock yourselfin your bedroom for five days
because you can't stop crying,you can't stop shaking and you
can't move, that is called abreakdown and that is called a
burnout episode.
That is simply your nervoussystem going.
The damn is full, the damn isfull, the damn is full.
(11:37):
I can't take it anymore and youwon't let me release the
pressure.
And so we have to learn toregulate our nervous system.
We have to learn to feel safein joy, and the way we begin to
do that is to find micro momentsof joy, to tell our body it's
(11:58):
safe to laugh, to tell our bodyit's safe to soften for a hug or
a silly video that someone sentyou, or to laugh at a joke or
whatever it may be.
So you've got to train yournervous system, otherwise there
will be no room for joy.
So your nervous system has alsostolen your joy, and it's
(12:19):
sneaky because we don't realizethese become our natural state.
And lastly, this is a biggie.
This is one that I personallyhave probably fallen into in
time, and I call this the trapof overachievement.
I am someone, probably like you, who likes to achieve.
(12:42):
I like hitting goals, I likesetting big goals good old, big,
hairy, audacious goals.
I value efficiency, and whenyou are wired to achieve, when
you are stuck in wanting toconstantly achieve, to
constantly be better and overlaythat with this I've got to earn
(13:04):
my rest, the joy gets buriedunder this pursuit of enoughness
.
Perfectionist, eat your heartout here Perfect plans, perfect
houses, perfect families, eventhough your quest to meet the
ruthlessly high standards thatyou set for yourself can never
actually be met, because that'sthe whole point, and so you set
(13:24):
for yourself can never actuallybe met, because that's the whole
point, and so you constantlyfeel like a failure in every
area of your life.
This overachievement that we,the bar that we set ourselves
ends up being a huge amount ofoverfunctioning.
Is it any wonder, then, we'vegot overfunctioning, striving
for overachievement in a nervoussystem that is trapped in
(13:47):
hypervigilance?
Well, of course, there is noroom for anything, because your
internal and entire focus isabout proving yourself, proving
yourself worthy, provingyourself valuable, proving to
others that you're helpful.
It's about being perfect in thethings that you believe are
(14:09):
important to you, which usuallyis everything, and it's about
protecting, then, your nervoussystem from failure, from
letting people down, from guilt,from saying no and worrying
about everybody else's feelings.
All of this is a hyper focus oneverything outside of you.
So joy isn't on the agenda.
(14:31):
There ain't any room for that,because it's now a distraction.
It's inefficient.
I've got things to do.
I've got things to achieve.
I've got really, really bigthings to achieve, so how on
earth could me being frivolousand having some fun.
There's no room for that.
We mask the joylessness withbusyness.
(14:51):
We spend our lives doingachieving, ticking things off
lists, being ruled by dopaminehits, but we never actually feel
anything.
Because if we're not busy doingstuff, then we have to sit and
realize that on the inside we'renumb and underneath the numb we
(15:15):
often feel empty, and we don'tlike that feeling.
We don't like that feeling thatwe don't have enough joy in our
life.
We don't want to admit that toourselves, and so we find
something else to do.
The laundry never ends, theinbox never ends, the life admin
never ends, and so you can tellyourself this beautifully
logical story.
(15:36):
I don't have time for that.
I don't have time for that atall.
And this comes down to what Iopened with.
When a friend asked me when Iwas deep in my burnout stage,
when was the last time youlaughed until you cried?
And another way she said itwhen was the last time you
laughed until your pelvic floorgave away?
(15:56):
I was like, well, that made melaugh.
And if you can't answer that,that if you don't know when, the
last time that you came homefrom being somewhere or watching
something and your cheeks hurtfrom all the smiling, from all
the muscles that you've had andyou've got these beautiful smile
(16:17):
lines.
They might be wrinkles, butthey're smile lines, they're joy
lines under your eyes becauseyour cheeks have moved up so
much.
There's a difference between afull body expression of joy,
where your eyes light up and themuscles under your eyes
actually move, versus those fakesmiles like the model smiles
where, yeah, the mouth goes upbut it's not really felt, it's
(16:40):
just a fake.
Yeah hi, yeah, hi.
Nice to see you too.
Meanwhile you're going idiot.
Don't like you stealing all myideas.
Joy isn't efficient.
Believe it or not.
Joy is the thing that givesyour ambition depth.
It's what is rocket fuel foryour magnetism.
(17:05):
It's rocket fuel for yourleadership.
It makes others want to followyou.
I haven't talked about DebbieDowner.
I've worked for a few DebbieDowners and they're not fun to
be around.
They're not nice to be around.
Yes, you'll go and ask themsomething.
They can give you a veryefficient apply.
But when they never ask youabout what you do on the weekend
and they are purely allbusiness, there is not one ounce
(17:29):
of crack of that hardenedarmour that they have of
themselves.
You start wondering you're a bitof a machine here.
I don't know who you are, andespecially if we start thinking
about where the world is goingin the next few years the
incredibly rapid rise of AI joyis fundamentally what makes us
(17:53):
human.
You are never going to befaster than a machine.
You're never going to be fasterthan a robot and we are going
to start seeing all the get shitdone women out there terrified
of how AI is going to start toreplace them.
What it can't replace is humanemotion you making somebody else
(18:14):
feel joy.
Joy is infectious in a good way.
You can rise people up.
You make them feel good aboutbeing with you, about asking you
for insight or input.
People invite you placesbecause you raise the vibration
of a room.
They prove this with sciencethat often the most influential
(18:36):
people I'm not saying they'rethere kind of singing happy,
happy, joy, joy and kumbaya, andthat's our way of fluffing joy
and saying it's frivolous andwe're all going to sit around
and sing kumbaya.
And that's not what I'm talkingabout here.
I'm talking about that internallight inside of you where you
love your life, where you'reloving this moment, where you
(18:59):
feel that warmth inside yourheart of yes.
This is why I'm here.
This is what it is all for.
So today I want you to walk awaywith some new beliefs that joy
isn't what happens after you fixeverything, after you do
(19:20):
everything.
Joy is what happens and whatallows you to live and to feel
alive while everything else isstill unfolding.
If this episode speaks to you,if you have just realized oh my
goodness, I have suffocated myjoy, it has been stolen and,
(19:40):
most importantly, I am ready totake it back.
If you are done with it beingsuffocated under the weight of
to-do lists and responsibilityand deadlines, then come and
join me in Return to Radiance.
This is a 21-day challenge inbite-sized chunks, aimed to help
(20:01):
women exactly like you reclaimjoy.
This isn't about falsepositivity, fake smiles, some
random affirmations that I'mgoing to make you say.
This is about simple, powerfulpractices in two minutes a day
that are going to help youreconnect to what makes you feel
most alive no fluff, nopressure, no fakeness, no waffle
(20:25):
.
This is just presence that youdon't have to earn, that your
nervous system can start toreceive, because it's going to
be in micro doses, and where youdon't have to be hypervigilant,
because everybody here is likeyou.
You can remember what it's liketo feel again.
So come and join us.
This will be 21 days.
That is not going to befrivolous.
(20:47):
This is going to be rocket fuelfor your performance, for your
aliveness and for the rest ofyour life.
Come join us.
You can visitbalanceinstitutecom forward,
slash, return or we will put thelink in the show notes.
We start june 9th, so get inthere.
There's already joy happening.
Look forward to seeing youthere.
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