If you’ve read many of my articles before, you might recall I recently published one entitled We Don’t Need to be Happy
You might wonder then why I’m now talking about finding ways to spark moments of joy. Bear with me, I promise I’m not backtracking. The upshot of the above article was that we need to find ways to be at peace, rather than chasing happiness through external pursuits, such as retail therapy, food or alcohol. Artificial highs, if you like.
Over the last 18 months, I’ve found myself randomly experiencing moments of pure joy, seemingly out of nowhere. You know the kind of experience, where you suddenly think ‘wow, I’m so effing happy’ often with a wave of a euphoric emotion?
If you want more of those in your life, read on. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, then this article is especially important for you. I’d also recommend reading the other one linked above.
What made me decide to write this article was because I read the other day (on Gok Wan’s Instagram account) that these little pockets of joy actually have a name - they’re called ‘Glimmers’:
Today I learned about a term called a "glimmer." Which is the opposite of a trigger.
Glimmers are those moments in your day that make you feel joy, happiness, peace, or gratitude.
Once you train your brain to be on the lookout for glimmers, these tiny moments will appear more and more.
Does that mean that my life is all sunshine and roses, and utter perfection, day in, day out? Nope.
Does that mean I get to do exactly as I like with every minute of my day? Absolutely not.
But I am far happier than I’ve ever been before.
But how did I get here, and what things do I do (and don’t I do) in my life which help me to feel this way, more often? And how can you train your brain to increase your chances of feeling the same?
Read on.
Love yourself
Get your mind out of the gutter, please. I don’t mean anything saucy, but rather than it’s taken me a long time (and at least three 10-15 year-long monogamous relationships with men who haven’t turned out to be the right person for me) for me to finally realise what my issues were, and why I kept falling into that same pattern of behaviour again, and again.
Don’t get me wrong, those men have been perfectly nice human beings. None of them were abusive, although they all had their own different issues to deal with. And when the last one told me he wanted to end our relationship in October 2022, I was heartbroken, but I accepted his decision and started the process of rebuilding my life.
It took me well over a year to realise that there was a deep-rooted issue I really needed to work on. I only made the connection because I’d decided to spend 2023 (at the very least) on my own, not dating, not socialising much, just working on myself, processing the fallout from the breakup and spending time meditating, working out and journalling. I called this my ‘year of me’.
I also used my Bad Habit Kicker technique on myself. In January 2024, I decided that I needed to stop playing so many iOS games, that I’d accidentally become addicted to those tiny dopamine hits, and that it’d be a good thing for my life if I could stop wasting hours a day just pressing buttons for no good reason. After a few weeks, I came to realise that those games were just a mask, nothing more than a distraction tactic to stop me from thinking too deeply about something else…
It took about six months using my Bad Habit Kicker technique with each issue I uncovered, peeling each one back like an onion skin and moving on to the next, until finally got to the root of the problem, and it was a huge surprise to me when I realised what it was.
It was my self worth. Frankly, it was in the toilet. The bar had been set so low that if it’d been a physical thing, it would’ve been so small that it wouldn’t have been visible to the naked eye.
Why? In short, I was brought up with conditional love by a mother with issues of her own. She taught me that people were inherently selfish and would always act in their own best interests. And then I was bullied for all 5 years of my time at secondary school. So, when I became an adult and I started getting into romantic relationships, the moment someone seemed to care about me unconditionally, I’d stick to them like a limpet, and it would take an awful lot for me to let go, even when all of the signs pointed to the fact that the relationship wasn’t going to last, or that I should really leave. Ouch.
I’d also eroded my own boundaries (which has a knock-on effect on your self-worth, did you know that, not sure I consciously did, not until I really thought about it?!) most recently in an effort to understand and make allowances for my ex’s neurodivergence.
So, I set to work in order to boost and repair my self-worth. I did this through meditation, journalling and reading books such as Jamie Kern Lima’s Worthy (which I highly, highly recommend reading if you think your self-worth is something you could do with working on, too!)
I’ve come to believe that a healthy sense of self-esteem is truly fundamental. It has ripple effects on the rest of your life, from the food you put in your body, whether you drink alcohol (or if you do, how much and why), what you do as a career and of course how you interact with the people around you.
If you’re not sure it’s as important as I’m making out, ask yourself this question: If you have a good sense of self-worth and hold yourself in high regard, will you accept a relationship with someone or behaviour from others which isn’t truly healthy for you?
Unlikely.
Once you know who you are and what you will and won’t accept from those around you, there’s a sense of congruency, where you start to care far less what people think of you, because you know that you’re acting in ways which align with who you are and what you believe is right for you.
And with that comes peace, as you’re not constantly worrying what people think or feeling like there’s something wrong because of the behaviour you’re accepting from other people.
And with peace, I believe that you open the door for potential moments of pure happiness, also known as glimmers of joy.
Experiment with sobriety
This could be a bit of a divisive one, but it’s made such an enormous difference to my life that it would be truly remiss of me not to mention it.
Luckily for me, I’ve always been a bit of a reluctant drinker of alcohol, anyway, and I’ve dabbled with sobriety throughout my life.
I’ve never particularly liked or enjoyed the sensation of being drunk, and I’ve only been blackout drunk a small number of times in my life.
My last romantic relationship was with a man for whose family drinking alcohol was a big part of their dynamic.
When I was growing up, my parents were daily drinkers, too. They’d settle down of an evening in front of the TV with a glass or two (or three) of wine, or a whiskey and lemonade. When I was in my mid teens, they started buying cider for me, and I’d have a couple of cans on a Friday and Saturday night in my bedroom, while watching TV. It was just a normal part of family life.
And yet, even though both of these families saw alcohol consumption as something that was a normal, perhaps even an essential part of life, it didn’t sit well with me.
When I was 31 or 32, I started having funny turns in the middle of the night. Bone-crushing pain would wrap itself around my torso and chest, until I could barely breathe, and I’d often be sick with the pain, lying for an hour or more in a cold sweat until it receded. It transpired that I had gallstones, and the wonderful NHS removed my gallbladder in 2007. All’s well that ends well, or so I thought.
Alcohol is a depressant. We all know that. But wow, it started to really knock me on my backside, after I started drinking again, post-surgery.
Now, even if I had just one or two glasses of wine (even natural wine, the kind with no preservatives in it), I’d feel low and depressed for three days. It was also impossible for me to regulate my diet. I would just crave salty, fatty, or sugary things.
I tried every kind of alcohol I could think of, but everything seemed to have the same impact on me. And yet I still couldn’t stop, not long-term.
Eventually in June 2022, after sitting down with a piece of paper and a pen and writing a pros and cons list, and seeing that the pros were basically nonexistent, I realised that logically-speaking (as an ex programmer and hardline nerd, I’m all about the logic 🤓) it didn’t make any sense for me to drink, not any more.
And so, I stopped. I didn’t make a big deal of it, just when my partner (at the time) would ask me if I wanted a drink, I’d say no. One day morphed into two, into seven, a week into a fortnight and then a month and at time of writing I’m about 850 days into my sober journey.
Am I saying I’ll never drink again? Maybe. Am I bothered if I do? No..
Do I have any desire at all ever to drink again? Nope.
Why? Because I love waking up early in the morning, having slept well, and I also love not going through that moment when I open my eyes and I wonder if I had a drink the night before, realise I did, and feel disappointed in myself. For me, not drinking is an ideal way to live.
Anyway. Without the ebbs and flows in mood, the highs of drunken nights out and the lows of crushing depression and binge eating, I find my life is way more peaceful.
And again, as I mentioned in the previous section, if you can find peace in your life, you leave the door open for those moments of joy which can hit you, smack between the eyes, right out of the blue.
Sit with your emotions
I know I’m not alone in feeling like I was allergic to my own emotions, for the longest time.
I tried everything during my teens, twenties and thirties to try to avoid my uncomfortable feelings. I brought to bear every distraction tactic under the sun, in order to turn my face away from thoughts I didn’t like, or those which scared me.
I buried my feelings not only in alcohol but food as well (see above), which I believe is likely to have been at least part of the cause of my gallstones.
I won’t go into it too much, but as you can imagine, it left me overweight, unwell, and at the end of the day, without much in the way of progress regarding the issues which were actually bothering me.
Because you know what happens when you continually turn your face away from uncomfortable thoughts and personal issues?
If you said nothing, you’re dead wrong, I’m sorry to tell you.
What happens is that every time you wince at the very thought of sitting down and feeling your feelings, of working through them, and choose to do something else instead, they become just that little bit bigger and more scary in your mind.
It’s like when you’re a little kid and you’re utterly convinced that there’s a monster under your bed or in your closet. You have a choice, when you feel like that. Lie awake in bed all night, clutching the sheets up to your chin in absolute terror, or get up and take a look.
At which point, you realise that there’s nothing there, and you can breathe a sigh of relief, head back to bed and get a good night’s sleep. Assuming you’re not in a horror film, of course.
Emotions are just the same. Sure, they’re uncomfortable. But they’re usually a signpost, a nudge from your psyche that there’s something you really could do with facing up to, rather than running away.
I learned recently that most emotions actually only last for 90 seconds. I even wrote a whole article about it, which you can read here.
Why am I writing about facing up to your emotions in an article about sparking joy in your life?
Because I believe that if you’re constantly sweeping stuff under the mental rug in your brain, you’re never going to truly feel at peace, and without peace, there’s unlikely to be much joy.
You’re always going to have that creeping sense of unease lurking in your brain, that feeling that something’s wrong, otherwise.
So, how do you sit with your emotions? There’s more info in my article linked above, but in short, it comes down to:
Sit and count to 90 (as I said, emotions mostly only last for 90 seconds!)
Journalling
Meditation
Breathe through it (try box breathing)
Call/contact a friend or family member and talk to them about how you’re feeling
Go for therapy (or coaching, if the issue isn’t something deep-rooted/trauma-based)
When you don’t allow yourself to build those emotional rollercoasters in your mind which come with avoiding your feelings, and accidentally building them up to the size of a 1960s Japanese movie monster, then you can reach that state of peace, which again leaves the door open for moments of pure joy.
Remember what makes you happy/made you happy as a kid
Again in the spirit of bringing more peace into your life, ask yourself what makes you truly happy?
Or if there’s nothing which pops into your mind when I ask that question, what made you happy as a kid?
For me, rollerskating was a huge part of my summers. One of these days, when I have a little bit more time, I’m absolutely gonna lace up those skates again and maybe join a club.
For now, though, I tend to turn to the childhood habit which has absolutely never left me - reading. I read a heck of a lot. All genres apart from romance (although I have been known to dabble in a bit of Jilly Cooper or Catherine Cookson, in the past!) and I don’t just read to learn, I also read for fun. I read to spark off ideas, I read for pure enjoyment and also to quieten my mind before I go to sleep at night.
I also knit, which is something my maternal grandmother taught me when I was 9. It reminds me of being a child, and just picking up a pair of needles and a ball of wool throws me right back to sitting in her living room, the air redolent with cigarette smoke (it was the 1980s, we were all brought up in a bit of a fog in those days) and the Cheshire cheese and apple toasties she used to make for me (might sound weird, but I do recommend them!)
A friend started teaching me how to crochet, the other day, and I have a feeling I’m going to enjoy that, once I get a bit more to grips with the way I need to bend my hands! At the moment, I’m knitting tinsel for halloween.
I also love to draw and colour. I used to spend hours sitting at the kitchen table, copying cartoons, and it’s something I go back to regularly, especially when life is a bit of a challenge.
So, what is it that truly makes you happy or you loved doing as a kid? Why not try to do more of that?
Because, at the end of the day, if you’re doing something which makes you truly happy, then there’s no room for feeling discontented, and you’re much closer to joy than you would be if you were just slumped on the sofa, watching the TV.
Regularly get into a flow state
Flow is a technique I learned about when I was a teacher. You may well have experienced it yourself, but might not have a name for it, just yet.
I’m pretty sure it’s something human beings have been doing forever, but the term was coined in 1990 by an author called Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, in a book called Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.
In basic terms, Flow is when you’re completely absorbed in a task, and the hours fly by without you realising. There’s a sweet spot to try to get into flow, where the task has to be challenging but not too challenging, something which pushes you a little out of your comfort zone but not so far that you feel afraid.
And you need to have no distractions to pull your focus, you can’t multitask (or try, anyway - there’s actually no such thing as multitasking, just really fast context switching, but that’s a topic for another article).
If you’d like to know more, there are loads of articles online (such as this one), as well as the book, which you can find here.
And I just found a TED talk that the author gave in 2004: Flow, the secret to happiness
Why am I talking about this? Once again, flow leads to peace, and peace leads to windows of opportunity for those glimmers of joy.
Practice gratitude
Every morning, as part of my daily routine, I sit down with a pen and a pad and I write at the top of the page:
“5 things I love about myself”
At 9pm in the evening, a free app on my iPhone called Grateful reminds me to write down what I’m grateful for, that day.
This bookends my day nicely and makes me really think about what I have to be thankful for.
Why does this bring peace? Because it’s all too easy to get caught up in thoughts about how you want your life to be different, and to spend too much time considering all the things you don’t have, and to forget all the things already you do have.
You can’t be grateful and stressed out or dissatisfied at the same time, I assure you.
And with more peace comes the window of opportunity for those moments of pure joy
So, as this is a long read article, I fully appreciate that there’s quite a lot to unpack, there.
Am I suggesting you go away and start trying to do all of these things, all at once?
Far from it! Not everything will work for everyone. But there’s a good chance that one or two of those ideas might resonate with you. Why not try putting one of them in place for a week, and see how it goes?
The upshot of this whole article though is - if you find ways to feel more peaceful, then you’re likely to experience more glimmers of joy.
So, what do you think? Do you already have these moments of joy in your life? What do you do that brings you peace?
If you have hints & tips, I’d love to hear them!
Glimmer is new term for me but kind of fitting. It seems that they are something that can be experienced often, for me it’s the little things that are around us all of the time but we are so internally focused that we just don’t see them. Clouds, probably at different heights, traveling at different speeds. Triangular rays of sunlight breaking through a grey sky is guaranteed to make me smile. The interplay of light and the movement of air through a trees leaves. A sky full of stars after evening meditation can take the breath.
The key for me has been a quietening of the mind, silence, stillness all words synonymous with peace. When the internal narrative stills and you are content and can just be then the world can glimmer and surprise you with a sense of wonder in the everyday that is probably always there but you just don’t see. Meditation and time being in quiet awareness can sometimes make the world sparkle.
Loved the article, thank you!