{"id":46242,"date":"2021-08-25T12:14:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-25T16:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=46242"},"modified":"2021-08-25T12:29:17","modified_gmt":"2021-08-25T16:29:17","slug":"sympathetic-joy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/sympathetic-joy\/","title":{"rendered":"Sympathetic Joy: Happiness Is Contagious"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What is sympathetic joy? How do you master sympathetic joy <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/eckhart-tolle-meditation-mindfulness\/\">meditation<\/a>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sympathetic joy is the practice of deriving satisfaction from untainted happiness for other people. This applies to loved ones, strangers, and even enemies. You can master sympathetic joy meditation by picturing others, and imagining something good happening to them that will bring them happiness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read on to learn how to master sympathetic joy meditation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Let Go of Your Ego<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The second strategy for reconnection to others is letting go of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/your-ego\/\">your ego<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/focusing-on-others\/\">focusing on others<\/a> rather than your own struggles. This is especially hard because individualist Western culture operates on the assumption of scarcity: There is not enough to go around, so the only way to succeed is to focus on your own needs and compete with other people\u2014even for clearly unlimited resources like intelligence. This constant egocentric competition and self-interest fuels depression, but there is an antidote to it: a technique called \u201csympathetic joy.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Sympathetic Joy<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>As the name implies, sympathetic joy is the practice of feeling genuine, untainted happiness for other people. You won\u2019t master sympathetic joy meditation overnight, but if you\u2019re willing to practice it, it can significantly improve your life. To try it for yourself, follow the steps below, spending at least 15 minutes following them each day:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>First, imagine something wonderful happening to you, like falling in love or winning an award. In your mind, picture all the details of that moment. Let yourself feel the joy you\u2019d feel in that moment until it almost feels like that picture is really happening right now.<\/li><li>Now, think about someone you love, and imagine something happening to them that makes them feel that same profound happiness. Focus on their joy\u2014and then let it fill you up with that same powerful feeling. The goal is to feel as genuinely happy <em>for them<\/em> as you would feel if <em>you<\/em> were the one experiencing a joyful moment.&nbsp;<\/li><li>Next, repeat this process while picturing someone you see often but don\u2019t know very well, like a neighbor you\u2019ve never officially met. Picture them feeling powerfully happy, and try to feel happy that they\u2019re experiencing that joy.&nbsp;<\/li><li>This next step is tough, but don\u2019t give up! Picture someone you don\u2019t like, or who you have a conflict with. Imagine them feeling truly, profoundly happy, and try to feel equally joyful that <em>they\u2019re <\/em>joyful. This takes a lot of practice, so don\u2019t worry if you can\u2019t muster that feeling right away\u2014just focus on the image of them feeling happy and try to wish them well.<\/li><li>The final step is the real gauntlet: Picture someone you actively despise, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-to-push-yourself\/\">push yourself<\/a> to feel really, genuinely happy for them. It may feel impossible, even after weeks of daily practice, but that\u2019s normal. Keep practicing\u2014over time, that active hatred will start to lose steam, and you may even be able to feel truly happy for that person\u2019s happiness. That doesn\u2019t mean you agree with them or even like them\u2014but you\u2019re no longer consumed with negative feelings.&nbsp;<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>Studies show that sympathetic joy meditation has all kinds of mental health benefits, including reducing jealousy and increasing compassion in practical ways (which makes it easier to make the social connections everyone needs). Even better, training your body to produce a rush of joy whenever you see someone else succeed <strong>connects you to an unlimited source of happiness.<\/strong> At any given moment, someone, somewhere, is feeling profoundly happy. If you seek out those people and allow yourself to share their joy, you can conjure a genuine sense of happiness even when your own life feels especially dark.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Parallels to Psychedelic Research<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>As we\u2019ve just noted, deep, sustained <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/meditation-practice\/\">meditation practice<\/a> similar to that outlined above can be a powerful treatment for depression. The downside to meditation, however, is that it can take months or even years of practice to become skilled enough to reap those benefits. So, in the 1950s, scientists started the search for a faster way than meditation to dissolve the ego and reconnect to other people. They started the first official research into the clinical effects of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-are-psychedelic-drugs\/\">psychedelic drugs<\/a> like LSD (which was legal at that time) with extremely promising results. Those early studies showed that psychedelics could have all kinds of benefits for mental health, from helping people break lifelong addictions to healing chronic depression.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Unfortunately, a wave of anti-drug hysteria in the United States led to a total ban on LSD in the late 1960s, shutting down <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/psychedelic-research\/\">psychedelic research<\/a> programs before they could follow up on those promising early results. Research on the mental health <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/benefits-of-psychedelics\/\">benefits of psychedelics<\/a> didn\u2019t pick up again until a single study in the 1990s, this time using psilocybin (the psychedelic chemical found in \u201cmagic\u201d mushrooms). Modern medical research involves much stricter controls than in the 60s, so researchers spent months preparing participants before administering the drug in a series of guided, graded exposures. After taking the drug, many participants had deep revelations about long-suppressed trauma and described it as a \u201cspiritual experience.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once again, the results were almost universally positive\u2014<strong>nearly 80% of participants said the experiment was one of the five most important events in their lives. <\/strong>That study opened the door for a modern wave of psychedelics research. It\u2019s still in the early stages, but preliminary studies show that psilocybin is remarkably effective at treating <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/low-mood-and-anxiety\/\">depression and anxiety<\/a>. It\u2019s also more consistently effective for helping people quit smoking than any other treatment on the market. These results are correlated with the intensity of the spiritual experience a person has: Somehow, a powerful, mystical experience dissolves the ego as effectively as deep meditation.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What is sympathetic joy? How do you master sympathetic joy meditation? Sympathetic joy is the practice of deriving satisfaction from untainted happiness for other people. This applies to loved ones, strangers, and even enemies. You can master sympathetic joy meditation by picturing others, and imagining something good happening to them that will bring them happiness. Read on to learn how to master sympathetic joy meditation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":8340,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,6],"tags":[464],"class_list":["post-46242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-psychology","category-spiritual","tag-lost-connections","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Sympathetic Joy: Happiness Is Contagious - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"How can being happy for others bring you joy? 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