Foreboding Joy

When things are going great, do you suddenly feel gripped by the fear that everything's destined to fall apart? Like the universe is going to smite you to balance the score if you're experiencing more than your fair share of happiness?

I experience this a lot, but my brain has really upped the ante since my son was born. I'll look at him and think, "My god! He's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen" and then my brain goes, "He could get sick and die." I'll look at my husband and think, "Man, I'm so lucky I have him" and then think, "He could get in a car accident." I'll be petting my cat, Fern, and marvel at how adorable she is, and then think, "Her life's so much shorter than mine."

It's kind of an asshole thing for my brain to do, but it's super common.

I've been reading a lot of Brene Brown lately. She's a social worker and researcher. In one of her books I recently finished, she had a name for this awful thinking pattern. She calls it: Foreboding Joy.

We do this to protect ourselves from hurt. We think that if we don't allow ourselves to be radiantly happy than it won't be as painful if something bad happens. The thing is though, that's not true. Bracing yourself for pain doesn't make an incident less painful. It just robs you of the joy you could have been experiencing instead.

In yoga, it is taught that we have five bodies nested within each other. From the outside inward they are our: Physical body, energy body, mental body (emotions and thoughts), wisdom body (intuition), and bliss body (joy). When one body is unhealthy it effects the health of the other bodies.

You keep your bliss body healthy by doing things that bring you joy. But if we chase every joyful moment with a premonition of doom than we aren't giving our bliss body the nourishment it needs. According to yoga and Brene Brown, joy is essential for our health.

According to Brene Brown's research, the remedy to foreboding joy is a practice of gratitude—intentionally making time to acknowledge the things in our lives that make it great. Knowing that there are no guarantees, we should thoroughly enjoy the moments we have with that person, place, thing, or experience.

Practicing gratitude releases two chemical messengers in the brain: Dopamine and serotonin. Dopamine is important for mood, motivation, and attention, and serotonin is important for mood, social behaviour, sleep and memory. The funny thing is, these are two neurotransmitters that are typically pretty low in ADHD brains, and many mental health disorders, so we can really use every bit we can get.

Research by Robert Emmons and Michael McCullough found that people who kept a gratitude journal and wrote down five things they were grateful for before bed, expressed higher levels of emotional and physical health.

All of this preamble just because I want to share with you five things I am grateful for without being written off as mushy and overly sentimental. Here we go:

1) My cat's soft tummy

2) My baby's tiny feet

3) Goat cheese

4) My husband's floofy beard

5) All of my ADHD yogi members

If you are interested in developing a daily gratitude practice, there are a lot of products and tools available to support you.

The Insight Timer app (one of my favourite apps because it has so many different options for meditation, mindfulness and relaxation), has a variety of guided gratitude practices. Some of the recorded gratitude practices are only 2-3 minutes long so if you’re short on time but want to get your boost of dopamine and serotonin, it’s a great place to start.

There are also a lot of “5 Minute Journals” available that have you list the things your grateful for (like I did above), what things would make your day better, and other exercises. Check out your bookstore or shop online.

Or you can do your own list or freestyle journaling by timing yourself for three minutes reflecting on your day and writing down what you’re grateful for. Just don’t get hung up on making sure the wording is perfect or poetic. Protect your joy!

PS. My membership takes care of ADHDers' bodies, minds, hearts, and souls! Seriously. SERIOUSLY!

It includes:

-Yoga classes for all levels with time for questions after each class

-Mindfulness practices and pose tutorials in a HUGE recorded library

-Body doubles so you can work along side other ADHDers to help you do the hard/boring things

-Powerful live guided journaling practices

-Special events to help you set intentions and follow-through

-ADHD-friendly supports to prevent any shame surrounding consistency

-And membership to a non-judgmental, supportive, loving, and hilarious ADHD Slack community (Seriously, I love them SO MUCH!!!)

Follow me at @adhd.yoga and check out my online studio at adhdyoga.ca.