Moments of Joy

Our story: 

Moments of Joy is a video series encouraging participants to be present with something that has brought them happiness, no matter how their lives are going. Our videos also give viewers a chance to think of both the exciting and mundane ways we can see the abundance around us. 

I’m Michaella, the creator and host of Moments of Joy. I’m a writer, a psychology nerd, and a joy enthusiast. But I wasn’t always joyful. There was a point in my life when the terrible things that happened made me lose my ability to speak. I was too scared to leave the house or engage with people. Yet now I have the peace and confidence to talk to strangers about their lives and share joyful stories online. 

There is a theory of positive psychology that we can train ourselves to think more optimistically. After reading Learned Optimism by psychologist Martin Seligman, I developed my own free daily solution for dealing with low mood. 

No matter how boring or miserable a day seemed to be, I would challenge myself to come up with three specific, distinct moments when I saw even a sliver of happiness. This could be as simple as someone signaling for me to drive my car before them at an intersection or my dog running back to me while playing fetch in a lush green park. I would document my happy moments, reflect on them, and even review them later if I was feeling low. The point is that no matter how we are doing, we can make ourselves find a positive. In practicing this exercise, we also make it easier for ourselves to feel joy over time. 

One positive psychology theory, called Broaden-and-Build, suggests that positive emotions are not just fleeting moments of happiness but functional tools that fuel long-term personal growth and "upward spirals" of well-being. What I’ve seen from personal practice: the more we encourage ourselves to reflect on positive experiences, the easier it becomes to access happy feelings. Your joy can be big or small. Your joy can be anything. By taking time out of the day to be present with our joys, we actually strengthen our brain's capability for happiness!

Comment on our videos if you want us to visit your area soon. Let’s improve our mental health and well-being by building emotional resilience together!