Delight! Get More Squirts of Life Out of Your Day
(In-Between Time Experiment #10)
Hey there, it’s Marika! I’m here each week exploring experiments to uncover the delight, awe, ease & worth-full-ness available to us in the in-between times of life. I’m happy you’re here.
Last week we explored the AWE we can experience in daily life with an experiment that asks us to zoom way out on our lives. It’s a bit trippy, involves polka dots, and the art of Yayoi Kusama.
This month we’re exploring DELIGHT. I hope you’ll join us in trying the experiment and sharing your results!
What are your daily experiences of DELIGHT?
It’s okay if this is a head scratcher. And it’s okay if you haven’t experienced much delight lately.
Life can be a lot of things—stressful, sad, hectic, confusing, anxiety-ridden, lonely, disappointing.
But, the fact that it can be lots of things is also good news! Because even while it feels like we’re slogging through a mess of yuck, we can still often feel moments of connection, hope, amusement… and delight.
Life is here, offering us a stream of delight opportunities (delight-portunities?) each day:
the fragrant first sip of morning coffee
the slant of sunlight coming through the trees when you first step outside
a long drink of water when you’re thirsty
hearing the opening notes of a song you love
I could go on. As I wrote this, I realized I should be bumping up against delight all day long! When I press a long piece of plastic on the floor of a hulking machine that I own, it rushes forward! When I put food in a metal box for a minute in my kitchen, it comes out warm!
But, sadly, my daily reality is that I pour the coffee, heat up my oatmeal, look out my window, head out to my van and drive away without without much thought most days, let alone delight.
I define delight as the moments when pleasure meets satisfaction. I do sometimes let pleasure brush up against my days, but… satisfaction? Allowing myself to feel contentment or relishing the pleasure? That would be something new.
So this month, I’ll be experimenting to not only find delight, but to lean in when I do find it, in order to explore:
How can I get two extra squirts of dopamine from the ordinary delights I usually stumble past in my days?
I’m sure the numerous neurobiologists reading this newsletter are shaking their heads right now. I am aware that dopamine is not the “pleasure chemical” it’s often billed to be. More dopamine in the brain does not, in fact, equal more pleasure, and a complex mix of opioids your brain—serotonin, endorphins, oxytocin, along with pain inhibitors like GABA—also play a part. But, dopamine levels do play an important role in the reward system that eventually leads to pleasure.
So, scientific precision be damned. I’m calling this experiment “Two More Squirts” to nudge me into getting more from the delights around me I barely register each day. The pleasant click-click-click on the keyboard as I type. The cozy softness of a scarf around my neck. The glow of the lamplight on my favorite chair. The salty, crunchy, creaminess of that first bite of a taco.
Here’s how I plan to get those extra “squirts” this month:
Relax into delight. Our squirrely fight-or-flight nervous systems are constantly scanning for danger, making it pretty hard to direct our focus. If I can take a breath, and consciously relax my shoulders when I see that peek of blue sky between the clouds, I might have a better chance of staying with the delight it brings.
Savor the delight. When I feel delight, I’ll try to stay with it for an extra 5-10 seconds. I’ll try to open to it more in body, sensing how this particular moment of delight feels in my skin, in my shoulders, in my hips, in my heart.
Intensify the delight. As I’m delighting, I’ll try using more of my senses to take in the experience. I can stop to smell the dish soap or the lotion, run my fingers over the fabric of my blanket, open my ears to hear more details in the bird’s twittering.
Psychologist and mindfulness teacher Rick Hanson teaches that training your brain to “take in the good” can “turning fleeting positive experiences into lasting inner resources.”
With any luck, my Two More Squirts experiment won’t just result in happier, more satisfying days this month, but also, hopefully, more resilience to the yuck that is also sure to come along.
More Experimenteers Needed! Will you join me?
Do you want to try the Two More Squirts experiment? Perhaps there’s a daily delight or two you could squeeze more juice from? Let us know in the comments:
Does delight feel “easy” or “hard” for you? Is there another word you resonate with more?
What are some of your daily delights?
Have you ever tried an experiment to feel happier or more joy? Did it work?
I’ve been doing this with tiny moments of awe. Like the snow falling right now like confection’s sugar.
My dogs are often able to get me to experience daily delight because they are so funny and so in my face about it. :)
Morning coffee is usually one I can focus on and truly delight in.
Sometimes I find that taking my camera on a walk with me allows me to settle into delight because I'm more intentionally looking at what's around me.
Not quite the same thing but in the same vein, Gretchen Rubin writes about amplifying our experiences by enjoying all parts: the planning, the doing, and the remembering afterwards. I find that having photos and jotting notes down in a journal etc to remember these little things does magnify the delight.