I woke up this morning in a funk. Even though I had gotten a full night’s sleep, I felt tired. Even though I had absolutely no reason to be feeling sad, I thought I might burst into tears.

So I went about my routine with this dark cloud over my head. I checked my email and just felt blah. I ate my breakfast and felt like I was just going through the motions rather than enjoying it.

I was pretty miserable. And I couldn’t figure out why.

I know that moods come and go. I know that it’s pointless (and futile) to attach to them because as soon as we try to, another mood will take its place. I know that our emotions are constantly changing. And I usually don’t pay much attention to times when I’m feeling down because I know that it will pass.

But this mood was different. It was heavier. It didn’t just feel like a bad mood. It felt like my soul was asking me to pay attention to it. It felt like my heart was begging me to stop and listen.

And so I did.

And I realized that this mood was one that I was so familiar with. It was the Joy Hangover. 

Have you ever experienced it? 

You have a great day where everything falls into place. You smile. You laugh. You connect. You love. You open up. You play. You feel complete joy. And it’s absolutely wonderful. Perfect. Amazing. Your life is pure magic.

And then you wake up the next morning feeling horrible. Similar to an alcohol-induced hangover, you feel like, instead of alcohol, you’ve consumed more joy than your body could handle.

A friend once told me that as a child he quickly learned that feeling joy wasn’t necessarily a positive way to feel. He had gone out with his friends to a movie and asked if he could stay and keep playing with them. To this, his mom replied, “You’ve had enough joy for one day.”

Wow.

And I think many of us hold this message in our hearts. We have a certain Joy Quota that we can meet but not surpass. And if we do, we’re going to pay for it in some way. We’re going to feel depressed or sad or lethargic or just downright bad – hungover. 

And that’s how I felt this morning. I had such a beautiful day yesterday. Our dog was healthy. My husband, Dan, and I spent the day together hanging out and playing games and watching movies and taking naps and making snacks. It was a wonderful day filled with love, connection, and happiness. It was pure joy.

As a child, I learned very quickly that joy came with pain. And that anytime I felt happy something would happen for me to feel pain. For instance, my stepdad would be in a great mood – playing with my brother and me and being silly: pure happiness. And then, five minutes later, he would start yelling at us about something: pure pain.

I have lived my life constantly feeling that if I were happy that it wouldn’t (couldn’t) last forever. That something bad would happen to bring me back down. 

In fact, when I met Dan, I often wondered when things would fall apart. He was absolutely perfect for me, and I was happier than I had ever been. And I had such a hard time embracing that happiness. My default setting was to focus on the pain (dying pets, car accidents, illness, financial concerns, etc.) rather than staying present and allowing myself to feel joy.

Because that’s what it is: it’s giving ourselves permission to be happy. It’s knowing that we are allowed to feel joy. We are worthy of it. And not the fleeting kind, but the stays-with-you-always kind. 

If you’re also experiencing a Joy Hangover, I’m not going to tell you to take a couple of pills and sleep it off (or the blogging equivalent of giving you a bulleted list of 5 steps to cure your hangover) because I just don’t think it works that way.

What I will say, if you’re also experiencing this, is to stay in awareness of it. To be conscious about your patterns. To see how you treat yourself when something good comes into your life. And to see how long you can let yourself stay in that happy space. To recognize that happiness is your birthright.

To really allow yourself to feel pure joy without needing to come down from it. It’s not a high. It can be a state of being. It doesn’t have to feel foreign – like a substance that you have to quickly remove from your body. It can be your default setting.

And that’s what I’m working on today. Knowing that I want to invite joy to stay for a long, long while. Knowing that I am worthy of feeling happiness. Knowing that I can release my long-held beliefs from childhood saying that feeling good leads to feeling bad. I no longer believe that, and it’s time to shift into a new paradigm that states that feeling good leads to feeling even better. Period.

I am going to stay in this space of intention and awareness, and if this resonates with you, I hope that you stay in this space, too.

Let’s give ourselves permission to feel joy. Let’s let our bodies and our hearts know that there isn’t any need for a Joy Hangover. We don’t need to purge the good in our life. Let’s keep it and nurture it and create more of it. 

Yes. Let’s do exactly that.

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Hugs,