Episode #235 - Joy - Happiness and Mortal Chemistry

What is joy?  What is happiness?  So often in the church we talk about ideas such as joy and happiness but have a limited idea as to what they truly mean in our lives.

Transcript

Episode #235 – Joy – Happiness and Mortal Chemistry.  I am your host Damon Socha. I received a question this week from one of you wonderful listeners.  The question involved the idea of joy and what my definition of joy truly is.  This is the quote from last week’s podcast that evoked the question.

"When we truly accept the Lord’s will, we will find ourselves in a strange place where we can suffer with joy. I admit to finding a piece of this joy during this current difficulty. While I have struggled deeply and have endured serious pain, I have felt the joy of a loving Savior beside me."

I think that one of the greatest personal battles as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint is finding joy.  We talk about it. Read about it. Study it. And ultimately we hope to find it somewhere along the way.  We are taught the joy comes of obedience.  Joy is a rightful inheritance of mortal men.  The scripture states “men are that they might have joy.” We are taught that without some level understanding good and evil, one cannot have true joy.  We are taught that a fulness of joy will not happen in this life.  One of the main reasons being that the fulness of joy does not come until we are resurrected.  We are taught everything about it except perhaps what it really is and does for us in our life.  We should also recognize that joy is a byproduct of living the gospel and a relationship with the Savior.  It is not at the end of the journey but a product of that journey.

I think that the best place to start when we are discussing emotions such as joy and happiness is our mortal bodies.  We understand through scientific research that several chemical processes occur in the body that produce rewards.  Just a quick review of the internet and you can find out all you ever want to know about these “feel good” chemicals in our body, how we obtain them, their purpose and design and why we need them.  The follow is a quote that for now I will let sufficient for information regarding these hormones as we call them.

Dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins are hormones that are often called "happy hormones" because they contribute to feelings of pleasure, well-being, and positive emotions. They are influenced by lifestyle choices, stress levels, and self-care, and can be released through physiological reactions triggered by activities like exercise or laughing with friends. 

In addition to these hormones we have a drug in our body called adrenaline that also contributes to our level of contentment and happiness.  The key is to understand that we have this internal system of “feel good drugs” that are meant to reward us when we do things our mortal body desires.  These drugs are incredibly important to our well-being and the normal functionality of our bodies.  They are important to our spiritual nature and we will get to the why a little later.  But it is important to remember that these internal drugs are drugs nonetheless critical to how we view the world.  Almost every mental health issue can be linked back to difficulties with these “feel good” chemicals in our bodies.  For instance, severe anxiety is linked directly to an overactive adrenaline system.  While adrenaline is a feel good chemical, it is only meant for short term use by the body.  The body is not intended to run on adrenaline, when the system becomes unbalanced we can have such things as panic attacks, PTSD, OCD and all the phobias one can imagine.  When we remove the dopamine balance we end up with ADD and ADHD.  When we lose our serotonin balance we find depression, bipolar and some brain functions.

These “feel good” chemicals in our bodies tend to run our lives.  These create the chemistry that gives rise to some of our deepest feelings in the mortal body.  They are strong and undeniable when they run in our veins and when they don’t they have just as much power to derail the mortal experiment.  We need these chemicals to regulate what I am going to call happiness.

Now happiness and joy are often used similarly within the church but for me they are not the same.  Happiness for me rises out of our mortal chemistry.  And we need this type of happiness and emotional balance in our lives.  We need to be rewarded internally for working, socializing, painting, recreating and everything that provides for our happiness in the mortal world.  Anyone who has faced depression fully understands this need.  When a bad episode of depression occurs the world turns bleak and gray and we have no desire to accomplish anything, including life itself sometimes.  What this means in mortal chemistry terms is that when we do something, get out of bed, take a shower, go to work, be inspired, read scriptures we should be receiving an internal reward of chemistry for our actions.  This is happiness for us.  Acting and then receiving the emotional reward.  We tend to move towards activities that create the greatest happiness for us and this is how we choose our favorite color, what we like to do for work, our hobbies, our interests and so forth.  Without this chemistry, we become without motivation and lifeless.  So these chemicals are critical for our mortal sojourn.  It is very important to understand that our mortal brain is wired and built for this rewards chemistry.  When it becomes unbalanced or nonexistent not only do we lose desire to act but it can cause fairly serious effects in the mortal body.  These chemicals don’t just regulate our happiness but regulate the happiness for the entire body.  They keep the processes in balance.  That is why we so often have so many physical symptoms with our mental illness.

When we talk about pain in some senses, we are discussing at least in part the idea that without the “feel good” chemistry we can experience pain in a variety of ways and places in our bodies.  The pain is not signaling damage to cells but that our cells are out of balance with the needed hormones.  Now these feel good chemicals can also be problematic if we consistently seek after them without any thought for balance.  They tend to create addictions that are very difficult to overcome such as pornography, drug dependencies such as alcohol, nicotine, sexual addictions, phobias, and really any physical addiction we encounter.  They are powerful chemical that when misused can be difficult to tame.  You can ask anyone who has ever faced an addiction.  What is important to understand is that we need this chemistry and we need for it to be in balance.  Ultimately that is what we are trying to do when we are managing our mental health.  We are attempting to balance these feel good chemicals in our bodies.

Now let’s talk about what I will refer to as joy.  While these mortal feel good chemicals can be a part of the joy in our lives, they are not the main source and do not necessarily need to be present to experience joy.  Joy arises from our spirit.  It is also a feel good chemical within the spiritual body.  It is a reward system similar to our mortal system but it relies upon a different set of guiding principles.  Joy requires that we first understand knowledge of good and evil and then choose to act in “good” ways.  The spiritual reward is joy.  It is similar in nature and design to our “feel good” chemistry in that it makes us feel good spiritually when we act in appropriate ways.  Joy is also an energy than can be transferred to another spiritual body.  Unlike our physical body where I cannot share my chemical happiness with another, joy can be transferred to another soul.  The Savior and those who work with him in the spiritual realm can provide for this joy to be transferred based on the individual and the circumstances.  For instance, if the Savior were to appear before you, you would likely experience great joy.  This is a transferal process that allows us to know that he is the Savior and to experience joy in his presence.  That type of joy cannot be imitated by Lucifer because he does not experience it.

So in reality we have a source of happiness and joy.  What we find interesting is that happiness or the biological chemistry needs the guiding influence of the spiritual joy so that it remains balanced.  Without the balance of joy, our happiness chemistry seems to always get out of hand as in the case of addictions.  Yet joy does not need happiness to occur.  Meaning I can spiritually feel the Savior’s love for me and still be depressed.  I can feel that I am still on the right track in life even though my plans have been derailed.  I can still receive personal revelation and the feeling of joy.  Joy is independent of happiness but happiness cannot be independent of joy.

Now to really answer the question.  How can we feel joy when our body is racked with torment, depression, anxiety, pain and suffering?  How can I feel joy when I am struggling with my symptoms?  The first thing I had to do was separate joy from happiness.  For me joy is not the same as happiness.  Happiness is an excitement for life and an energy to live and act and do.  It is a reward for working hard, pleasing others, recreating, social interaction and taking care of my body and mind from a mortal perspective.  For me, happiness is almost always short lived and like a pharmaceutical drug, I need more of it to continue to feel happy and motivated.  Mortal happiness is always short-term and based on acting a certain way.  For instance, I like to paint and I enjoy portions of my work experience in construction very much.  When I am healthy and managing my mental health, I can get into a state of what is called flow.  This is where time passes without us recognizing it.  We can spend hours doing something and it can feel like just minutes.  This idea of flow is often the happiness we are seeking through our mortal means.  The difficulty with happiness in a mortal sense is that you need to have rest periods or you will burn out as they say.  This basically means that you have burned through your mortal happiness chemistry and you need some rest before you engage the system again.  In a mortal sense we cannot continue to endlessly seek after happiness drugs as they tend to cause serious issues when we do.

Now joy for me is different.  I do get energized from joy.  Have you ever left a spiritual church meeting really uplifted and full of life?  I have but it doesn’t feel the same as a physical happiness.  We might equate it as similar but the reality is that it is not.  So often that feeling of joy can remain with me for much longer periods of time than happiness.  Joy is also comfort when I am suffering.  Even the smallest spiritual comfort during a period of deep distress is joy to me.  Receiving personal revelation and knowing what the Lord desires of me also provides me with joy.  Joy comes of the spirit of the Lord and is an energy that he somehow transfers to our spiritual bodies.  We also can create that energy as we are obedient to gospel principles.  So when I say that “When we truly accept the Lord’s will, we will find ourselves in a strange place where we can suffer with joy.”  When we accept the Lord’s will in our life and fully engage with him, we will feel the joy brought by the spirit of the Lord.  I can still be suffering but feel the calm assurance that everything will turn out just fine.  I can still be in serious pain but feel the loving guidance of personal revelation.  I can know that God loves and cares for me as I suffer.

Now given my definition of joy, there are some things that should be understood at least from my experience.  When we are suffering with mental health problems, joy will be a much shorter experience.  Meaning joy doesn’t seem to stay with me as long when I am struggling with anxiety or depression episodes.  Joy does not necessarily replace happiness.  We need both and so we will always feel as though something is missing in our lives as we pursue happiness.  When we are struggling to find happiness, we do tend to struggle to find joy.  That doesn’t mean it doesn’t come, it is just more difficult to obtain.  Our spirits tend to equate joy and happiness as identical and so often when we don’t have one we think that the other is gone as well.  It is also important to note, that joy does not necessarily leave us and we can become accustomed to it in the sense that we don’t feel it.  Typically when we feel joy it is because we have had an increase or decrease in our joy and happiness.  Meaning when tend to notice when our level of joy or peace changes.  We tend not to fully understand how much joy we carry on a regular basis.  However, anyone who has gone down the wrong path for any length of time can tell you that we already have a solid base of joy in our life.  We just don’t feel it.  We don’t have a gauge that tells us if we are running on empty or have half a tank and I think that sometimes we just assume because we don’t have a gauge that we are running on empty.  Which for the most part is incorrect.  One of the things we need to more fully understand in our lives is just how much joy we do often possess.  Now remember this isn’t the mortal happiness chemistry.  This is spiritual nature and spiritual chemistry and it can and does operate differently.  I have often stated on this podcast that if you will ask the Lord to show you how involved he is in your life, you will be shocked.  I think that if you ask the same question about joy you will find the same answer because both run in parallel to each other.  You can’t have the Lord working in your life as you try to live the gospel and not experience joy on a regular basis.  It doesn’t work that way.  When you are trying and the Lord is in your life then joy exists.  I am certain that the Lord can show you just how much joy you do maintain in your life and again I think that it will shock you just how much he provides.

So when we are trying and working, joy will exist.  That is the promise of the Savior, “that you will always have his Spirit to be with you”.  The question is not whether it exists but allowing the Savior to show you just how much you are experiencing.  I know that feeling joy and happiness feels impossible when you are suffering.  The darkness that can be created by the imbalance of the mortal chemistry can feel emotionally deafening.  However, I promise you that the Lord is supporting you and perhaps far more than you have ever realized.  I hope that you will see the joy in your life and eventually the happiness as you work towards exaltation.  Until next week do your part so that the Lord can do his.