Welcome to Joy Lab!: 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
Henry: Hello, I'm Henry Emmons and welcome to Joy Lab.
Aimee: And I am Aimee Prasek. Here at Joy Lab, we infuse science with soul to help you build your resilience and uncover your joy. We are excited to share some news about our Joy Lab program in this episode. So we're gonna talk a little bit about that. The news is that the Joy Lab program is now part of our NMH community.
So that means when you join one, when you join the NMH community or when you join Joy Lab, you get both. It also means that we'll be able to support each other as we move through the program as a community. So we wanted to take this episode to talk a bit more about the Joy Lab program, particularly those 12 elements and also those four experiments of the program.
And we wanna talk about these elements and these experiments because we kind of have a unique approach and an effective approach.
Henry: Yeah, I think that everything we do at Natural Mental Health and in our community is aimed at one of two things: boosting resilience and cultivating joy.
Those are not the same thing. They are clearly related to each other. I think it's hard for a lot of folks to connect with joy if their resilience is low. If they've been knocked off their game for whatever reason. Now becoming more resilient won't automatically make you more joyful, but at least it gives you a chance. I think though that being more joyful does automatically make you more resilient. It, it's like resilience is just baked into joy.
So for folks who are struggling when they first come to Natural Mental Health or find their way to Joy Lab, I would say, if your resilience has really taken a hit, if you're feel like you're dealing with anxiety or depression, working on resilience is always a great place to start. Even if you do that though, building up your joy muscles can still help you get back to yourself more quickly, even if you, you're not really feeling it at the time. And for everybody else, if you're coming in and you're not feeling like you need help recovering from anything or building back your resilience, then working on boosting your joy will not only help you thrive, it can really go a long ways toward preventing any future kind of mental health problem.
So the Joy Lab program is built on what we call the four Pillars of Joy. The first is CBT, or cognitive behavioral therapy. Many people are familiar with this. We put our own spin on it, but basically it involves becoming more skilled at dealing with your own thoughts and emotions. The second pillar is called positive psychology, and that's a relatively new branch of psychology and it changes, in my view, it changes the focus of treatment from what's wrong to what's right. And I think it's just a perfect fit for Joy Lab because when we start from a place of greater health and stability, it gives us a solid base and we can build from that, and then we can create those positive spirals that we love so much. The third pillar then is what we call the science of mindfulness. There is a rich psychology, um, underlying mindfulness that blends just beautifully with CBT and with positive psychology. And I think it offers such a natural and life affirming understanding of what goes on inside of us, both when we're out of balance and when we're in balance.
And I think it includes very practical, accessible ways to get ourselves back on track and just to attend to our inner lives. So we rely heavily on this in our Joy Lab program. The fourth pillar is what we call the wisdom of the soul. We included it, in part, because we just love it.
But also because we see this deeper part of ourselves as the conduit, as the thing that where we can access joy and create a more joyful life. So when you discover that you have this capacity within you, and then you learn how to work with it, I'm gonna throw out a metaphor here, Aimee, get ready for it, it is like you've installed a level two charger at home to power up your electric vehicle. The grid, the the joy grid was there all along, but until you can connect to it, it doesn't really do you much good.
Aimee: I love it. Plug in. I'm gonna try to cook up a little analogy or metaphor as well. I'll think about it. We love 'em here. So let's briefly touch on 12 elements of joy. And broadly how the program works. So in Joy Lab, we work through, uh, these elements of joy. They are hope, fun, curiosity, awe, compassion, equanimity, love, inspiration, savoring gratitude, sympathetic joy and resilience.
And in the program, and here at the podcast as well, at least on Wednesdays, we focus on one of these every month. That means we actually circle around them yearly. And after three years of the program and you know, many more years researching these elements, I still feel like I'm gaining so much from each, every time we cycle around the sun.
Um, so this monthly element also means that even though the Joy Lab program is self-guided, we're all working on the same element of joy. And this approach gives us this kind of shared attention. We're all on board, we're all working together to cultivate more of each element.
It's a really unique way, I think, to stimulate peer support and also fuels a bit of what's called the positive network effect. Which means that the more folks that gather to participate, the better the outcomes. Which is what social media platforms rely on. And I think, you know, we should do the same with public health programs, we should put some of those social media platforms out of business and replace them with something purposeful, something healthier. Uh, or at least we'll learn more about social savoring and we can make social media healthier. I'll link to a episode we covered social savoring on recently. I'll put that in the show notes.
Okay, so now why these 12 elements? Our 12 elements really come from a diverse group of sources. Which I think adds as well, simply that diversity to the power of these 12. Here's a bit of those origins. So we pulled from what are often called the 12 cognitive effective qualities of mindfulness. So these include seven mindfulness qualities that were introduced by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, which are non-striving, non-judging, acceptance, patience, trust, openness, and letting go. And then we have five more that were added a little bit later on from um, Shapiro, Schwartz, and Bonner. And those are gratitude, gentleness, generosity, empathy and loving kindness. And those are kind of, those last five really address those heart qualities of mindfulness I like as well, Shapiro and colleagues who I just noted there, they identify that these mindfulness qualities, all 12 of them are involved in something called like a synergistic co-evolution. Meaning that as you build one, it just automatically facilitates the growth of the others.
That's the upward spiral as well. Uh, we see our 12 elements of joy having that same relationship. In addition, we looked to Dr. Mar Martin Seligman's, character virtues and strengths. Um, the work of Dr. Barbara Fredrickson and her Big 10 Emotions. We looked to, um, the soul work of, Parker Palmer. To make room for the deeper self. And also what are often called the universal values, ethics or virtues of a variety of wisdom traditions.
So these elements really come from thousands of years of lived experience. I think alongside the evidence-based concepts most associated with positive mental health outcomes. But to make sense of all that, we applied our own expertise. We assembled and merged and reassembled these possibilities into the 12 elements that we felt had the best body of evidence, and the ones that might offer more bang for your buck.
Because in the program we just have one month and only about three hours of monthly practice per element in the program. So it matters what we're on.
Henry: Aimee, I love all 12 of the elements. I really do I and I, I'm not even sure I could pick one as my favorite or most important. And I honestly believe that you could create a joyful life by focusing on any single one of them.
But when you work on all of them, they reinforce and build on one another. And then it's like you have access to an entire charging network. So you knew that was coming, right?
Or something
Aimee: Yes. Agreed though.
Henry: So then, you know, it doesn't matter where you are, what you're doing, you can find a charger nearby and one that actually works. So you know you can lift your mood, your energy, your spirit. No more range anxiety.
So I think that this works so well alongside traditional psychotherapy. Nowadays, you know, most therapists, at least anybody who who takes insurance for their work, has to submit a treatment plan and the goals of treatment plan, one of them is generally, to be able to get back to the person's baseline of how they feel and function. But the ultimate goal of therapy, as I see it, is to develop the insights and the skills that allow you to do well long after the therapy has ended. And like that goal, I think with Joy Lab and Resilience Training, it's all about skill development. So you, you, create these things that you can take with you. They're mobile. They don't depend on the therapist. They don't depend on any particular technique or being in any given place.
Now, resilience training, I, the way I see it, it helps you face whatever is in front of you. With strength and equanimity, knowing that you're up for it no matter what it is. While Joy Lab, I believe, helps you to thrive. You will not see thriving on a treatment plan because it's not gonna be a covered benefit. It's not considered an essential part of medical care.
But I think it should be because thriving is possibly the best antidote for stress. And when you can get to the point of thriving, there is just no space for something like anxiety or depression to kind of work its way back in. I used to hear all the time from therapists who referred their clients to a resilience training program about how much it helped them. And I think it's why so many people kept referring their folks to our program. I still see patients myself and I as a clinician, it just feels so good to know that there are these programs that are already created. They're right there and I can just refer folks to it. And I know that if they do them, their chances of actually feeling better and doing well long-term go up so much.
Aimee: Your, um, note. On coming back to feel and function has me thinking. I'm just thinking about what that means. Like you just kind of, I, I feel better. And then you kind of get back on the factory line where where function might not be fulfilling. There's so much more than just functioning.
So I love that. So we practice and build up these 12 elements. This is how we do it with our four experiments that we do through the month. And I'll explain the first two and then Henry, do you wanna do those last two,
Henry: Sure.
Aimee: Okay, the first experiment we do, to launch into our element every month, is called infusions. These are brief meditation practices, but they are unique. I wanna highlight why. So with our infusions, the goal is to, over the course of one week, to complete both an AM and a PM meditation daily. The AM is three minutes and the PM is right around five minutes. So it's only about eight minutes daily for one week.
The first unique aspect of this experiment has to do with that dose or duration. You could call this microdosing of meditation, kinda like.
Henry: I like it.
Aimee: Yeah, compared to the dosage of other mindfulness based programs.
So the bulk of mindfulness based programs are actually pretty intense. I would say often they're eight week programs with around 45 minutes of daily meditation practices for the expectation of adherence. And there's nothing wrong with that. There are, great programs that have that sort of expectation.
But, I think 45 minutes of daily practice is a lot. Particularly if you've never sort of explored these types of practices, that can be really intense. It's just not feasible, I think for a lot of people, including myself. It took me, Six years of, of dabbling with mindfulness, uh, and meditation practices before I was able to engage in a eight week course like that. So, it might just not be realistic. And if you caught our episodes on resolutions and goals and such, you'll know that an unrealistic, goal is not a great place to start.
I'll link to some of those episodes in the show notes as well. So the good news is that there's a lot of solid research to say that brief mindfulness practices, like our infusions, can be really beneficial. Those short sessions can offer actually immediate benefits, like, like just those short three minute, five minute, practices can support, focus and attention. And then more frequent brief practices are associated with positive shifts in mood and stress outcomes. So there's certainly benefit to those longer, 45 minute sessions, but there's also a lot of value in these brief practices.
So the other aspect of this is that we actually put an intention into these infusions. Those intentions are our elements. We're placing our attention on the element. We're inviting it to show up in that moment, throughout the day, and then also kind of to ease us into sleep, which I love. So models like intentional systemic mindfulness and lots of research on attention really support this kind of intention and attention practice.
They're really valuable. Our second experiment then is called loosening the grip of thought. This experiment, which includes a meditation to really cultivate awareness, is grounded in CBT cognitive behavioral therapy and works with what are sometimes called the cognitive distortions as well.
So that's a lot of jargon for mostly working to shake loose the patterns of thinking that make us feel bad. The false stories we tell ourselves, about how we're broken or how we don't belong. The thoughts that go on replay, that create divisions within us and between us.
This experiment is not the goal is not to stop that type of thinking, which I think is important. We're actually working to create new possibilities, uh, new patterns of thinking that are more true and that serve us better. Which I think is a really good lead into our third experiments. So Henry can dive in there.
Henry: So sometimes I believe that folks think of mindfulness basically as a type of meditation end of story. Mindful living though is so much more than that. People who have listened for a while to our podcast may have heard me talk about what we view as the three aspects of mindfulness. It's our very simplified way of thinking about how to apply mindfulness in our daily lives. And so here they are again, very briefly. First, see what is, see clearly. Second, accept what is, be able to hold it without pushing it away or grasping it. And third, act wisely. And it's this third part to act wisely that we're really trying to emphasize with our third monthly experiment. Insight is great, but it doesn't do everything it could without action. And we also want that action not to be just reflexive or reactionary, but to really be smart and effective. So we are trying to harness the power of awareness and attention and intention to make sound healthy changes. We start doing that by envisioning the change in our minds first, just like a good architect would do if they're working on a blueprint, they don't start building a fancy building without first creating it in their mind and putting it down on paper. Then we can be really thoughtful about how to make these changes happen in real life. The fourth monthly experiment we call Dialogue with the Soul. And I'm not sure that idea resonates with everyone. And so I want to say a little bit about how we got there. This is a practice that evolved slowly out of two major events in my life. The first was when I was in my early forties. And over a period of about three years, there were four people very close to me who died in sequence. And
it was, it was just in this short period of time, I lost my father, my birth father, my birth mother, and my sister. And it just sent me spiraling downward and to what I came to view as a dark night of the soul experience that took me a long time, probably several years to get out of.
Now, I spent a lot of time during those years actively grieving and doing that in part by reflecting and writing on what I was experiencing inside. So I developed this technique just trial and error, I guess you'd say, where I would have a conversation with myself. Writing a question on in my journal, something I was struggling with, and then just sitting and waiting quietly until something came up that seemed to come from my wiser self. And then I would write. I'd just keep writing until I felt like I'd had said everything I had to say. Surprising to me some years later, several of those entries ended up in my books essentially verbatim. The second influence happened a few years later when I encountered the writer and teacher Parker Palmer. Some listeners are familiar with him. He had, and if you're not you, you might want to check out his books. They, they really, really made a profound difference for me. And I also met him personally and heard him talk about this program that he created for professionals and it was for professional renewal, personal and professional renewal, and it was called Courage Work, or Courage and Renewal. I was so taken with it that I trained with him and his staff for a couple of years. And then I started a program for health professionals that I called the Inner Life of Healers. It was through this courage work that I really felt my own understanding of the soul was, was really deepened and, and clarified.
I think that might be a good topic, Aimee, for, uh, an entire podcast, so I'm not gonna go into it much now except to say that I now see this part of ourselves as a completely reliable, supportive ally that we can learn to listen to and be guided by. And so we practice this about once a month for each of the 12 elements of joy, which I think is just such a great way to both cultivate this relationship with our inner selves and also benefit from it.
Aimee: Yeah, that phrase courage work. I think that's such a good reminder to us all that doing this inner work takes a lot of courage. it makes life so much more fulfilling and meaningful and joyful and easier, I think, but it can be really hard to just take those steps into the darkness, into our suffering.
But as it said, and I agree, the only way out sometimes is through. And so taking that first step, that committed first step can be really hard. And that's a big reason why we go about this work the way that we do, I think as well. This work can be hard facing depression, anxiety, stress, head on. But it doesn't have to be terrible.
Uh, it doesn't have to be like a cruise ship with a vicious strain of rotavirus or something. I think that's my metaphor... analogy... simile... uh, I think it's one of the many benefits though, of a more strength focused approach, what we do here. I'm gonna close this up though before my metaphors get a little too wild.
So anyway, we do wanna support you on your journey at sea and it can be joyful. That's the last bit of my metaphor I'll share. But I do wanna share a quote from researcher Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He was a pioneer in the study of flow, the concept of flow. And also in positive psychology as well. So here's what he wrote in his book Flow:
"What I discovered was that happiness is not something that happens. It is not the result of good fortune or random chance. It is not something that money can buy or power command. It does not depend on outside events, but rather on how we interpret them. Happiness, in fact, is a condition that must be prepared for, cultivated, and defended privately by each person. People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives. Which is as close as any of us can come to being happy.
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