Week 51: How All This Passion, Pain, and Courage Add Up to Joy [Loveable 052]

“Fear about the future becomes bravery in the present becomes joy in hindsight. Joy is knowing you can be scared and still ride through life. Joy is being terrified and trusting you’ll survive it. Joy is believing in yourself enough to believe you are brave.”

Joy and happiness are not the same thing. In fact, they may be opposites, and the difference between them could make all the difference in your life. In Episode 52 of The Loveable Podcast, we focus on how practicing your passions may not add up to happiness but will almost certainly add up to joy. Because happiness is about things going your way, whereas joy is about trusting you can handle life, no matter how things go…

Here are just a few of the takeaways from this week’s episode:

  • Both positive and negative feedback can disrupt the practicing of our passions, because they inflate or wound our ego, rooting us there, rather than in our souls, where all authenticity and creativity originate.
  • Perfectionism is a highly evolved defense against criticism.
  • We fear vulnerability will mean we get wounded; usually, it means we get joyful,
  • Bravery is going one step farther than you think you can.
  • Courage isn’t going forward without trepidation; courage is going forward with determination, even when we are terrified.
  • You don’t need to become brave, you need to realize you have already been brave.
  • Vulnerability and bravery are practiced every day in ordinary life.
  • To encourage our kids to be brave, don’t teach them about bravery, help them remember times they’ve already been brave.
  • Sometimes fear is a boundary we need to push through; other times fear is telling us we need to set a boundary in our life.
  • We stay afraid instead of brave because we never attend to what happened to the things we feared, we just move on to fearing the next thing. Pay attention. You’re brave.

You can listen below or on iTunes!

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In his debut novel, Kelly weaves a page-turning, plot-twisting tale that explores the spiritual depths of identity and relationships, amidst themes of healing, grace, faith, forgiveness, and freedom.

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About Kelly

Dr. Kelly Flanagan is a psychologist, author, consultant, and speaker who enjoys walking with people through the three essentials of a truly satisfying life: worthiness, belonging, and purpose. His blog writings have been featured in Reader’s Digest, The Huffington Post, The 5 Love Languages, and the TODAY Show. Kelly is the author of Loveable and True Companions.