We have just learned why the brain goes to and clings to negative experiences. Well, the very reason it does this is because it ignorantly believes that by running these negative programs it is fostering our joy and happiness by helping us avoid pain and the possibility of even death. Ironically it brings us pain in the form of worry, anxiety, anger, fear, and so forth. We now know that this is a somewhat perverted and misguided system, so let us look at joy and how the power of joy can transform our lives. The brain wants to go to joy; it wants us to feel good and avoid suffering despite its ignorance in avoiding external suffering through inflicting us with internal mental emotional pains that deplete our ability to enjoy. Yet, it still believes it is driving us toward joy by using these negative mental states to avoid pain.

What we enjoy we will not only do time and again, but we will seek it out. This is why it is very important to bring joy to your meditation practice. Think of something you do not enjoy doing. It becomes a chore. And if you had the choice, you probably wouldn’t do it. When we have this very stoic and serious attitude toward anything, it often becomes daunting, and we might force ourselves on it for a short while, but eventually we will give up. Bringing joy to our practice, however, is paramount in keeping a consistent practice. Tich Nhat Hanh, a meditation master and Zen teacher reminds us that, “if your practice does not bring you joy, you are not practicing correctly.”

Although a few techniques here, especially in insight meditation, can bring us to that painful place where we must confront suppressed pains and emotions, we eventually let them go and feel more joyful and recognize that they were always bringing us a level of discomfort so we can rejoice in uprooting such inflictions of the mind. I have done much purification of negative views, and my brain does everything in its power to divert my attention from it by creating mental and physical distractions to try to keep me from looking at something painful. I even have felt like throwing up or like a burning ball of angry anxiety is looming in my solar plexus, and the brain says, “Hey, stop or you might stay like this.”

Well with gaining clear insight it often takes a bit of facing painful situations, but after doing this several times I invite these practices with joy because I know the lightness and joy it brings in the long run having removed negative beliefs that lurked in my subconscious only serving to deplete the very thing we all seek, happiness and joy. The irony is that, the joy is there, the happiness is there, and these negative views serve only to cover up the joy within us, like a film on a window that we can’t see through. We need to wash away those negative beliefs, and doing this with joy is key. When we sit down to practice our basic breath meditation or whatever your daily practice may be, just bring joy to mind. Note the light, joyful feeling you get when you finish your practice. We do not have to practice hard or get all heavy about it. That dramatic mind is just the workings of the survival mind. Don’t force yourself to endure or push yourself to exhaustion. Our meditation should serve to allow us to express ourselves more freely, not impede or exhaust us. When I put new strings on my guitar, if they are too loose, I can’t get any sound out of them, and if I wind them too tightly, they will snap and break. There is a middle ground of tuning where they sing, where I can express myself through them. Our practice and in fact our lives can be the same: not falling into the extreme of being lazy or too loose and not able to express our music like a limp string, but also not the extreme of pushing ourselves to the point that we deplete our joy and exhaust ourselves making the string so tight that it snaps. Our practice should nourish us, and although getting to the root of beliefs can often be tiresome in those practices, in the long run it nourishes us greater because we release baggage that we have unnecessarily been carrying with us for often a very long time.

Dr. Richard Davidson of the University of Wisconsin studies joy and happiness in relation to the brain. Davidson has studied the brains of monks who have spent their lives practicing meditation and positive emotions and has concluded that their happiness and joy is off the charts. This is not only a faculty reserved for monks living a monastic life, however. Davidson discovered that if any person sits quietly for a half an hour a day, meditating on compassion and kindness, that their brains will exhibit visible changes in just two weeks. Other studies have shown that people who are kind are more popular, have stronger immune systems and bodies, and are generally more successful at work. The benefits of a consistent practice are immense, and the key to a consistent practice is to bring joy to it.

Studies in neuroplasticity are proving that the brain is always being changed by the thoughts we think, the things we watch on TV or read, the people we interact with, the food we eat, and so on. We now have tools to direct that change in more positive and mindful ways, as opposed to the often unconscious change that takes place without our even being aware of it, like when we zone out and watch TV in a meditative state, allowing floods of psychological commercials to shape our brains.

Our joy resides within us, and we can train our minds to relate to it by simply becoming aware of it in everything we do. We can catch ourselves when we get caught in a dramatic or negative mind. Perhaps we are driving down the street and this happens. We can practice stopping and just becoming grateful for all we do have. We can just bring joy to the driving. Although this takes some training, especially in those who have such deep habits for negativity and drama, just realizing and seeing that we are in a negative mind state is the first step to directing it in a more positive direction.

Neuroscience is validating the amazing ability we have to change our brains and thus our lives for the better. We are living in exciting times.

The next time you sit down to practice your meditation, just reflect on that joy that is inside of you already. Even if you are in a bad mood, you can find it. Often a thought of a small child or face of a loved one is enough to allow it to arise. You can use these thoughts as points of meditation if you like, familiarizing yourself with the joy. Feel the love you have inside of you, and foster the habit of mind to readily go there. As you do this, you change the neural pathways of the brain that are carved out to go to negative, to ones that go to joy, love, and happiness. Now who wouldn’t want that?

This doesn’t mean that negative emotions do not arise. But as we change the habits, they do not linger for as long as they used to, because the brain now has a new habit: one that not only creates joy in our lives but in the lives of others. The mind of joy will strengthen your immune system, relieve massive amounts of unnecessary stress in your life, and create the conditions for more joy to show up in your life because what you focus on expands.

Joy and kindness go hand in hand. When you feel joyful you naturally extend kindness, and it works the other way too: being kind creates joy not only in the one we are being kind to but also in ourselves. If you get nothing else from this book, these two minds and actions will transform your life if you practice cultivating them: they are kindness and joy. Think about what that really means beyond the words. What does it mean to cultivate more joy and kindness in your life? How would your life be better if you were more able to tap into those infinite resources within you? How would it affect others in your life?

Here are a few suggestions for enforcing your habit for joy.

Create a list of five things that evoke that sense of joy in your life: It could be a child’s face or an ocean wave, spending time with a loved one, anything. We can use these as points of focus to shift the mind to the immense joy we hold within us.

We can also make a list of five things we do that bring us joy. It could be playing an instrument, swimming in the ocean, spending time with family, and so forth. For me, sitting and playing my guitar helps to evoke the joy within me when I am feeling low. We can use these as points of focus or engage in them when we feel blue to help strengthen the habit of joy in our minds. Remember there is nothing outside of you that can create your joy. You are simply using these to remind you of the joy you already have within you. In any moment we can bring to mind something that evokes that joy, and joy will arise. This is proof that it is not outside of you, but a force within, and all we need do is foster a stronger relationship with it by directing the mind.