If Gratitude Lists Don't Work for You, Try the Daily Joy Practice Instead

how neuroscience helps me find my way back to joy in motherhood and in life

Photo by Caroline Hernandez on Unsplash

I often resent my children. I know I’m not supposed to say that, but it’s true.

As precious and adorable as they are, and as much as I love them and would never actually wish them away, I also regularly find myself irritated by their presence. Instead of chubby cheeks and gap-toothed smiles, I see endless messes and eye rolls. Instead of giggles and unbearably cute mispronunciations, I hear constant whining (about every. single. thing) and ear-piercing screams (which, thanks to my Apple watch, I now officially know are in the decibel range that causes hearing loss). Instead of wanting to savor every moment, I just want them to LEAVE ME ALONE.

It’s not supposed to be like this, my conscience laments, before switching on the guilt. You’re supposed to be grateful, I remind myself. They’re gonna grow up so fast, and you’re gonna regret not spending more time with them! So I resolve to focus on the positive and manufacture a feeling of appreciation. And maybe it helps for a few hours or days, but pretty soon, I’m right back to resentment. Not that I always feel that way—sometimes I feel neutral, and other times I do feel some warm fuzzies—but irritation colors my view too often for my liking.

Gratitude on Steroids

Ever since I read One Thousand Gifts years and years ago, I’ve tried to implement a gratitude practice. I’ve made the lists and looked for the good, and it has helped a little (when I actually did it), but somehow it always felt skin deep. I’d mentally check off the things to be grateful for, but my heart would remain relatively unchanged.

Then, a few years ago, I came across the work of the “neurotheologian” Jim Wilder who explores the ways that neuroscience can enhance our understanding of spiritual formation and help us to better live like Christ. One of the big topics in his work is the concept of joy.

Wilder defines joy as the feeling of being accepted and appreciated for who we are, the feeling of knowing that someone we love sees us and delights in our presence. He calls it a “dynamic relational experience” in which two minds recognize that they are “glad to be together.” It’s often communicated by smiles, laughter, or a “twinkle” or “sparkle” in someone’s eyes. You see joy on parents’ faces when they look with delight at their newly-smiling infant, but also between friends, lovers, or any two people with intense mutual appreciation.

Other researchers define joy less relationally, but no less profoundly, as “an intense, temporary feeling of elation combined with an appraisal of right relation between ourselves and the world, a sense that there is an ideal fit between ourselves and the world around us at that moment.”¹ In other words, it’s that feeling that for just a moment, everything is right with the world and within yourself. I experience this sometimes when looking at a particularly beautiful sunset or taking a walk in the dappled sunlight of the Berkshire woods.²

For Wilder, joy is inherently spiritual. He points out that Jesus names joy as the reason for his teaching in John 15:11, including the idea Wilder emphasizes that joy can be transferred from one person to another: “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete” (NIV). It’s also a central aspect of Jesus’s prayer for disciples in John 17:13. Indeed, Wilder argues that joy is the quintessential experience of intimacy with God.

It’s also the way to develop that intimacy—or any positive habits. Wilder writes that “joy stimulates the growth of the brain systems involved in character formation, identity consolidation, and moral behavior.” Indeed, experiences of joy actually change our brains, attaching us to the other people involved and training our brains to seek and create more joyful moments in the future. It works in the same areas of the brain responsible for identity formation such that our very sense of who we are is impacted when we experience joy.

A Daily Joy Practice

So here’s how this connects. One of the things Wilder recommends is a daily joy practice, and this practice has changed my life. It’s like gratitude on steroids.

You start by naming around three memories when you experienced joy—that sense of mutual appreciation and admiration, of rightness between yourself and the world. The best joy memories will be relational (involving another person), but if you struggle to find those (I did at first!), you can include moments of joy with a beloved pet, alone with nature, and of course with God, who counts as a person.

Once you’ve identified some joyful moments, spend a few minutes writing down the sensory details of that experience, especially the way you felt in your body: warm, relaxed, soft, strong, calm, energized, and so on. The goal is to bring the moment to life for yourself, so you want to paint it with as much vivid detail as possible. Give each memory a name if you want.

Then, simply take 30-60 seconds to relive each memory. Close your eyes and recreate the moment in your mind, allowing yourself to feel the joy of that moment again. When you’re ready, move to the next one.

That’s it. Repeat daily for best results.

It sounds simple, and I’ll admit I was skeptical at first, but I was amazed at how much happier I felt within the first few days of starting the daily joy practice. I was nursing my youngest daughter at the time, and I used habit stacking to get myself going, speaking my joyful memories aloud while she nursed. Soon, she began asking for “joyfa moomries” if I forgot or didn’t begin right away. (Talk about compound interest! Now I have a joyful memory of sharing my joyful memories with her.) We’ve since shared the technique with our older daughters and helped them to name and describe their own joyful memories that they can turn to when they feel down or scared.

It’s a wonderful tool for families because it’s simple enough to implement at any age, and it helps cement bonds between people. With a little practice, you’ll develop a shared language of joy where you can quickly prompt one another to “return to joy” by remembering a joy memory and even remind one another of established joy memories because you’ve heard them so often.

A great tool I discovered is a photo album with pictures connected to shared joyful memories for the family. Ours might have a picture of our trip to the beach when we found a shallow pool above the shoreline with perfectly warm, clear water for our toddler (and the rest of us) to play in. It also might have a shot of our two older girls on a bench swing mid-laugh, clearly cracking each other up. A digital picture frame works well too. Every time one of us sees those images, it prompts our brains to remember those moments of joy, strengthening those pathways in our brains and further cementing our connection to one another.

That’s the great thing about habits: the more you do them, the easier you get. In this case, not only will it get easier to embody your joyful memories each day, but your brain will also start to find joy automatically and returning to it more quickly after something upsetting.

So take heart: if it feels difficult to find joyful memories for your daily practice at first, it will get easier! Just do the best you can and trust the process.

Hope for the Gratitude-Challenged

After years of failing, this is the first time I’ve stuck with a gratitude practice. Why? Because this one really affects my heart. It changes my physiology and my brain, and the results are tangible. I know lists can work wonders for some people, but if you’re gratitude-challenged like me, I highly recommend this method for taking thankfulness beyond the surface and delivering it where it really counts.

Now, when I notice myself slipping into resentment and frustration, I turn to my joyful memories. Usually, I realize I haven’t been doing the daily practice recently.

Because when I do practice joy consistently, and especially when I include memories with my children, I experience my girls differently. They still whine and make messes and scream like they’re dying when I ask them to brush their teeth, but those things no longer drown out the cuteness and innocence and earnestness of their little faces and hearts.

I look for the joy in each moment we have, and by looking, something almost miraculous occurs: I find it.

1. “Joy: An integrative theory” by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, published in The Journal of Positive Psychology, March 2022, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/359325681_Joy_An_integrative_theory.

2. Wilder would argue that even these apparently “non-relational” experiences of joy are in fact moments of connection with God through creation, such that they’re actually relational after all.