June 28, 2024
Freedom Friday: Reclaiming Joy in Adulthood
What if maturity didn't have to mean losing your joy? On this Freedom Friday episode of the Unlearned Podcast, I revisit that very question, inspired by a poignant scene from "Inside Out 2." Imagine Joy, the ever-optimistic character, grappling with the reality that growing up could mean having less joy. This revelation hit me hard and prompted me to challenge the conventional belief that joy diminishes with age. Join me as I share this deeply personal experience and unpack the emotions introduced in the film—anxiety, embarrassment, envy, and boredom—and how they intersect with our perception of happiness.
This episode isn't just about a movie; it's about reclaiming joy as adults. We'll dive into the complexities of adulthood, where responsibilities pile up, and anxiety seems to overshadow our happiness. Together, we'll unlearn the limiting belief that joy is reserved for the naive or untainted. Tune in as we explore practical ways to cultivate joy in our lives, regardless of how "mature" we become. It's a heartfelt journey that promises to leave you feeling a bit lighter and a whole lot freer.
This episode isn't just about a movie; it's about reclaiming joy as adults. We'll dive into the complexities of adulthood, where responsibilities pile up, and anxiety seems to overshadow our happiness. Together, we'll unlearn the limiting belief that joy is reserved for the naive or untainted. Tune in as we explore practical ways to cultivate joy in our lives, regardless of how "mature" we become. It's a heartfelt journey that promises to leave you feeling a bit lighter and a whole lot freer.
Transcript
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Hello everybody and welcome once again to the Unlearned Podcast.
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I am your host, ruth Abigail, aka RA, and this is Freedom Friday, where we come and share something we have unlearned recently and how it has made us just a little bit more free.
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If you haven't checked out our latest episode drop, do that.
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Myself and Jaquita are talking about how we've unlearned, what we've unlearned through our faith journeys from our twenties until now, and so, yeah, go check that out.
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I think we get pretty real and transparent and vulnerable, like I think we do on a lot of them, and so it's going to be.
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It's really good.
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I think you'll get something from it.
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We'd love to hear what you all think.
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So what I think it was.
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Last weekend I took my bonus son to go see Inside Out 2.
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I have to be honest, he was very excited to see it.
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I'm pretty sure I was more excited.
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I have been waiting for this since the first one.
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I think it's one of the most brilliant movies and it was not a disappointment.
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If you have not seen this movie, you should absolutely go see it.
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It is incredible and um, I there was.
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I had a lot of feelings in it and I had a lot of, uh, different thoughts and I think this is it was a great opportunity to talk about what, what this movie actually kind of sparked my unlearning, how this movie unsparked my unlearning this week, and so if you haven't seen it, big picture, riley, who's the main character, is now a teenager, she's going through puberty, and so it's introducing all these different emotions.
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The different emotions, think, are anxiety, embarrassment, envy, and there's one called, I think, on we, which is the idea of, like, boredom, and I might be missing another one, but those for sure.
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And so the and, of course, the other characters you know, joy, anger, fear, disgust, and again, I might be missing another one.
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So so in this, you know, this is really about her, her, her battling the, these new emotions that she's all of a sudden feeling.
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The primary emotion that's kind of brought to the forefront is anxiety, and so there's a moment where you know Joy and the other more core, the older emotions, the ones that have been with her longer, kind of get cast out and they're on this journey to get back to helping to control Riley's emotions.
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And Joy, who's, like you know, the most happy, go lucky, extremely positive character, has a moment of despair, has a moment of frustration and she makes a statement and this statement, um, I actually took my phone out and I wrote it down immediately because I said that this, right here, is a powerful statement.
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This is what she says Uh, maybe this is what happens when you grow up, you have less joy.
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Grow up, you have less joy.
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And that statement has had my mind thinking about all kinds of things, and so this idea that when you grow up, when you get older, when you mature, you have less joy, was that was the thought that she was having, because at this point, anxiety was kind of beginning to take over Riley and what I what that.
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What I think we need to unlearn from that is because I I think we, we all probably feel that like it's harder to have joy when we get older Because all of a sudden, you know life gets different, it's harder, you have more to deal with, there is more opportunities for anxiety, there are more opportunities for fear, you know you have more to lose in a lot of ways.
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Right, there's the future is much more imminent and can be scary, and so it feels like the older I get, the more responsibility I have, the more of the world that I figure out, the less joy is really available to me.
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And so what I think we need to unlearn from that is I think we need to unlearn maturity.
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I think sometimes we've got to unlearn maturity because if that is true, if this idea you know that we have less joy when we grow up idea you know that we have less joy when we grow up then what that might, what that means, is that joy is a kind of a situational emotion.
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That joy is for people who are naive.
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Joy is for people who are kind of untainted by the world.
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Joy is for the people who are innocent, right Young children who don't understand things.
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And, of course, you have all this joy because you don't know anything right, and when you start to know stuff, the joy that you once had is really not as strong.
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And so I think we have to unlearn maturity, because I think real maturity is the complete opposite of that.
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I think real maturity honestly is three things.
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I think real maturity is accepting that you're not in control.
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Part of being mature is understanding I'm not in control, I never will be, and there's always going to be something outside of myself that is going to control situations and that are going to, uh have some level of influence over me that I can't do anything about?
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The weather, uh, other circumstances, other people's actions, uh, the economy?
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You know, there's always going to be things.
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And when, when I'm, the mature version of myself acknowledges and accepts that I'm not going to always have control.
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The second thing that I think maturity does, real maturity, is accepting that you're always going to have an enemy, even if that enemy is yourself.
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You're always going to have an enemy, even if that enemy is yourself.
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You're always going to have an enemy, even if that enemy is yourself, because we, just we live in a world where things are going to constantly be coming at us, becoming against us.
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That's just the truth.
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So those things where that's, that's, that's mature we we have, there are some things about the world that we just have to accept as just real.
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And then the third thing is maturity is understanding that harnessing joy is actually a strategic counterattack to both the lack of control and your enemy, your enemy.
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When I, when I harness joy, when I choose joy, I'm choosing not to be, I'm choosing not to be controlled by my circumstances, I'm choosing not to be controlled by the things that I can't control.
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I'm choosing not to be controlled by my circumstances.
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I'm choosing not to be controlled by the things that I can't control.
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I'm choosing not to be controlled by my fear.
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I'm choosing joy over those other things, and when I refuse to allow things I can't control and things that come against me to define my reality, when I choose to not let those things define my reality, then I'm able to exist in truth and not just in my current experience.
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Right.
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And so I think that we have to realize that truly, the the older you get, the more joy you really should have, because we recognize that joy is not just this.
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You know, innocent, fleeting emotion.
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Joy can be a healthy weapon.
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I know that sounds crazy, but it can be a healthy weapon for those moments that are completely outside of your control and those moments in which you are sometimes at your weakest.
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Because joy is really not something that is defined by our circumstance.
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It's more than a feeling.
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It's a way that we exist, and if we can exist in joy, then we can exist in the truth and not allow situations and experiences to define what's real for us all the time.
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And so that's what I'm unlearning Real, mature people have the most joy because you understand the true dynamic of what joy is.
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So we need to unlearn maturity and need to to need to recognize that the grownups are the most joyful people.
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The real grownups really are the most joyful people in the room.
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All right, that's it.
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Um, you guys, stay tuned.
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We're dropping stuff every week, so make sure you're subscribing, make sure you're sharing, commenting, letting us know uh, what, uh, what you think, let us know, and let us know what you're unlearning.
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And if, if you have seen inside out too and you have reflections, I want to hear about them because, man, I think this is one of the best movies that's going to come out this this year.
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So let's keep unlearning together so that we can experience more freedom.
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We're going to see you guys next week.
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Peace.
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Thank you once again for listening to the Unlearned Podcast.
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We would love to hear your comments and your feedback about the episode.
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Feel free to follow us on Facebook and Instagram and to let us know what you think.
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We're looking forward to the next time when we are able to unlearn together to move forward towards freedom.
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See you then.
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