Choosing Joy on Purpose by Breaking Free from the Habit of Expecting Disappointment
- Mar 23
- 9 min read
Updated: Mar 27
Written by Johnna Key, Spiritual Guide & Teacher
Johnna Key is known for her calming and serene voice when guiding meditations. She is the author of the newly published book, Making Space to Breathe, and YouTube channel, Journeys with Johnna.
When you look out globally across the world or locally on a smaller scale, there are many pockets of this planet not doing well right now. Many pockets that need extra support and love in all capacities. When our world is carrying a lot of heaviness, our spirit desires to slow down to celebrate, taking time for even the smallest of wins, allowing us to welcome in joy. Celebrating despite the heaviness around us can give our minds and bodies a sense of relief that’s needed when processing and consuming an external environment.
Through the years following 2020, I see an unfavourable trend building, to shame those having fun or enjoying life. The number of posts or comments I’ve seen condemning others for going about their lives while the current “torch for the cause” isn’t being picked up and broadcast on everyone's social media page. It’s a sad day when society feels guilty or ashamed for being happy.
Around late December to early January this year, 2026, many psychics around the world were posting their energetic predictions for the global collective. I typically enjoy watching some of these, especially if it’s sent by a friend. I recently watched one such video on YouTube, by Teal Swan, the 2026 Forecast. One of the predictions she mentioned was that people will be celebrating more often.
This specific prediction really resonated with me. I was excited to hear that, despite what we are programmed to see on Social Media, many of us will take time to celebrate. I sat back to think about my last real celebration, which was two years ago for my birthday. This particular year, I participated in two celebrations of my trips around the sun. They were warm and memorable experiences. I realized that two years ago, between celebrations was way too long to celebrate something, and I asked myself why it had been so long.
Here’s what I realized, our brains are pre-wired to remember and hold on to the “negative things” or unfavourable and challenging experiences of life. This can send you down a negative thought loop that will slowly or, for some, quickly take over how you operate in your day-to-day.
An article published in Psychology Today explains why our brains are pre-wired to remember the negative. Our brains are here to protect us and keep us alive.
The brain’s intent in remembering the negative things that have happened to us is to help the human race survive.
This makes complete sense for our ancestors, who were farmers, hunters, gatherers, and nomads, surviving the elements. For example, they needed to remember a brutal winter in one region and how miserable it was, to avoid that region the following year, and help keep more members of the community alive.
In modern day, the brain remembers the negative things to help keep you out of harmful cycles, abuse, addiction, or repeated patterns of depression. The trouble in modern day is that we are so unbelievably distracted in daily life that we are not paying attention to the signals of the brain.
So instead of remembering the negative thing and not doing it again. We remember the “negative thing”, leading to defeatist or pessimistic thoughts, and we become emotionally uncomfortable, and choose to distract ourselves from thinking about said “negative event,” leading us to repeat the loop over and over.
What’s also happening is when you slow down to rest or sleep, the brain is bringing those negative experiences to the forefront of the mind to process. In order not to repeat the cycle, but to truly let go and move on, one cannot hold on to the emotional charge of the situation.
When we hold on to the pessimistic, emotionally charged experiences, we begin to live from a wounded space, over time causing celebrations to become “something for children”, rather than something for everyday life.
In my case, and in recent years, celebrations have become limited to only my birthdays. I’ve noticed in my personal life and those of many I come in contact with that since the lockdowns, we aren’t getting together as often, for hardly any reason.
As I reflect and get out of my own negative thought patterns, I see that for myself, I have so much to celebrate! As I’m sure you do too.
We can so easily get into that wounded space when we are processing painful experiences. It’s okay to be there for a brief period while we grieve and process. It’s vital for self-awareness that we stay aware of how long we’ve been in the grieving process and how it is affecting the life of the individual.
Once I heard this celebration prediction from Teal Swan, I desired to set this as a lifestyle intention. Not just for this year or when it suits me, but most days, taking the time to find at least one thing to celebrate.
Releasing the defeatist thought loop
In recent years, there was a background song looping on reels on all social platforms, written by AJR, The Good Part. This song resonated with millions of us because we all want to “skip to the good part”. As a collective, we’ve been programmed to suffer, leading us to want to bypass, “skip to the good part”, or take a quick fix pill. And if we’re not skipping the process, we’re distracting ourselves from ever having to think about “the issue”.
Life can become heavy in a personal manner of speaking, illness can plague the body or mind, lack can permeate through the finances, heartbreak pulses through relationships, all leading us to live in a wounded space, not celebrating life but hiding from it.
Releasing defeatist thought loops is a practice that can take months or years. Releasing oneself from the pattern of suffering is a deep dive into the ego, a journey that looks different for each of us. It’s very doable when you take the time to be aware and be willing to do the work through the process.
Two ways to release the pattern of suffering in defeatist thought loops
First, "stop distracting yourself." Stop it. Stop endlessly scrolling on your phone, especially while watching TV. Stop needing to be surrounded by noise, action, or people, and sit with yourself. Stop trying to entertain yourself, let yourself get bored.
In the day of instant gratification and endless distractions, stopping is easier said than put into practice. It takes mindful effort all day, every day. It takes picking up your phone to make a call and resisting the pull to click on an app. Start small, set yourself up for success, but be honest and follow through with yourself.
Ask: What’s my biggest distraction right now? Am I willing to cut back or stop?
If the answer is no, be honest, identify it, then be aware you’re not willing to do anything about it right now.
If the answer is yes, what’s the first thing that feels safe to do to help you alleviate this distraction? Do you cut down on device hours, or have one less drink each day? You decide.
Secondly, "get comfortable with absence." Alleviate or eliminate the distraction of the above responses, then just hang out. Don’t rush to replace, manifest, set a goal, or add another “less offensive” distraction. Get comfortable with boredom and the absence of being distracted.
Getting comfortable in the absence could look like bird watching, sitting outside to enjoy nature with the sound of nature, going for a walk, or doing other light movement.
Giving yourself this gift will allow you to meet a core need: being seen. Everyone wants to be seen or heard. Giving this gift of boredom allows the mind and body to show you what you need, and letting yourself be seen by yourself is a huge act of self-love. Pessimistic or defeatist thought loops will come up because they need to come out. Often, once you just listen and let yourself be seen, the thought loop leaves. It just wants to be heard.
For those more deeply rooted thought loops, they’ll require more attention that will slowly peel away with time. You cannot force or push yourself, let it appear. You’ll know which are the ones to focus on and which will be gone before you return from your walk.
Choosing joy through celebration
Once I acknowledged to myself that I hadn’t taken the time to celebrate myself or my wins in far too long, I had to start small. I didn’t have the energy to leap into a big celebration. I accepted the chosen busyness of myself and everyone around me, starting small, celebrating little things in my daily life.
These small celebrations make more of an impact on our psyche than the larger ones do. Creating a fresh perspective that strengthens over time to become a part of who you are.
We’ve been so programmed by society to focus on one of the BIG celebrations and bypass the small wins. Big celebrations often bring about more opportunities to focus on the negative or what went wrong in the past, or what could go wrong.
So get in the habit of not only celebrating those big wins we all know about, but also celebrating you or your family every day in other ways.
Celebrating the small wins
Programming the brain to find the joy in the journey and celebrating the small daily wins is a beautiful way to start. It can reflect what’s outside you, which we sometimes need external validation to give an emotional boost. Get mindful of your day. Slow down to let each interaction be more meaningful rather than rushed.
To create daily mindfulness and also a natural confidence booster, ask yourself: What was the small win for the day? How does it feel to celebrate you for a small win? Continue to ask yourself as many questions as needed to help you sort through the day.
Some days might need many questions, while other small wins are easy to identify and don’t need as much reflection. Either way, you always feel better about yourself and your day when mindfulness is added.
Celebrating the big wins
These are the celebrations we’re used to! Holiday season, New Year's, Birthdays, Promotions, Engagements, or Marriages. We’re used to these wins and at times can feel obligated to participate or host these wins for yourself or others. Big wins we know.
But are we really enjoying the big wins? When it becomes forced or obligatory, it’s no longer a celebration.
My encouragement for the Big Wins is to be present. Sometimes the big wins are obligatory for either yourself or others, so setting up the intention of being present during the celebration allows you to receive something you would’ve seen if you were distracted or resistant to the exchange. The big wins are sometimes more challenging than the daily ones.
If you participate in a big win that’s been forced upon you, then find the balance for a big win you can totally get behind. For example, you go to a wedding of a family member you hardly know, you choose to be present, and in turn, you really enjoy the food and music selection. The energy exchange here is that you showed up for someone else willingly and with intention. In turn, you received joy in learning some new songs, hearing a few favourites, meeting some interesting people, and had a warm, free meal. Balance is out. Process the negative thought loop, then celebrate yourself.
Yoga Nidra for emotional regulation
While you're initiating the release of defeatist thought patterns to choose joy, Yoga Nidra is a wonderful practice to assist you in not only finding that balance but also maintaining it. Life is all about the balance, in the releasing and welcoming in, life will always need a balance.
Yoga Nidra assists you in balancing the nervous system. While working on yourself to be the change you wish to see in this world, it’s important to have a balanced and regulated nervous system. Join me on my YouTube channel, Journeys with Johnna, as we balance our nervous systems.
Modern-day life is doing some serious damage to our nervous systems and developing pessimistic thought loops. I encourage you to choose to find joy in the journey. Learn to release what you no longer need in the thinking mind and welcome in your version of joy. Because you and your life are worth celebrating! Each of us is worth celebrating in our wins.
Read more from Johnna Key
Johnna Key, Spiritual Guide & Teacher
Johnna Key is a certified Yoga, Meditation guide, & Spiritual Teacher, leading others to calibrate their nervous system and ease overwhelm within the mind. Derived from her experience in the Western medicine system as a child and divorce from a narcissistic relationship as an adult, Johnna has learned and implemented tools to heal the mind, body, & spirit from traumatic experiences to exit karmic loops and generational patterns. Her passion is teaching others to find self-acceptance for their experiences and the emotions or perspectives that can surface. It's her passion to help others calm a busy mind, ease the tension in the body, and learn to meditate to find joy and self-worth in the journey we call life.
Resources:
Psychology Today: Three Reasons Why the Brain Loves Negative Thinking
Song: AJR – The Good Part
Yoga Nidra – YouTube: Journeys with Johnna
