Finding Joy

(bright music) Headspace Studio. Hello, it's Eve here. Welcome to Radio Head Space and to Tuesday. So have you ever been in a bad mood or been upset about something, and then you've seen somebody laugh and it really helps you to come out of the mood that you were in? You feel a genuine sense of happiness at witnessing someone else's joy. In the traditional teachings this is known as Mudita, or sympathetic or empathetic joy. It's something that's been a huge help to me and I wanted to share it with you. Over the weekend, I'd been feeling a little bit low and tired, and it was affecting my mood. I decided the best thing for me to do was to take our dog Pedro out for a walk. Pedro's favorite thing to do in life is play ball. He's a little Wiener dog, or a sausage dog as they're known in the UK. So it's pretty entertaining to see this little long body and tiny legs chase after a ball, his ears flapping in the wind. So when we went on our walk, for the first few minutes I was really caught up in a flurry of thoughts and I was barely noticing his happy little face and wagging tail until I overheard someone say, oh my goodness, your dog looks so happy. And at that moment I looked down at him and he was just beaming. Seeing how happy he was, made me beam with joy as well. And for the rest of the walk, I was in a totally different mood. I paid attention to my surroundings. I said, hi, when somebody greeted us as we walked past. And I noticed that other people were laughing and enjoying themselves. We're all interconnected and share our experience as humans. When we see suffering, our natural response is to want to do something about it. So if we can apply that same logic and share in the joy of others, we dramatically increase our ability to feel a sense of happiness. This is an attitude quality that can be cultivated and practiced. A simple way to do this in your daily life is when you see someone laughing or doing something that makes them look happy or content, you can say to yourself silently, I am happy that you are happy, and you can even do this with folks that you don't know. Something to be aware of, and I think is important to call out, is that it can be quite easy to compare ourselves to others. It can be quite easy for feelings of envy or jealousy to creep in. A view that there is not enough happiness to go around and that you won't ever feel that same joy. And it can also be helpful to be aware of needing others to feel happy, so that you can feel happy. And this can often happen when say, organizing something for someone or doing something...