#265: How to Practice Joy in a Time of Adversity and Release Your Happy Brain Chemicals with Radha Agrawal

If You Want To Add More Joy To Your Life, You Should:

1. Integrate daily movement practices that boost your Dopamine, Oxytocin, Serotonin, and Endorphins
2. Join or create a community that makes you feel included and supported
3. Start viewing joy as a non-negotiable part of every single day

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Episode Summary

When I think about the most important things in my life, the list includes family, friends, health, and joy. But a lot of us can struggle with that last part, especially during times of adversity. The good news is that you can create more joy in your life by making it a priority every single day and coming home to the community around you.

Joy Should Be Non-Negotiable with Radha Agrawal

My friend Radha Agrawal literally oozes joy. She is the co-founder and CEO of DAYBREAKER, a global community focused on creating joy through movement practices, co-founder of Thinx, and author of Belong: Find Your People, Create Community, And Live A More Connected Life. Radha’s joy-sparking power has earned her global recognition, an opening spot on Oprah’s latest tour, and has brought her her greatest joy in life, her 20-month-old daughter Solei.

The 8 Core Pillars of Joy

After feeling lost and distracted in her 20’s, Radha decided that she wanted to come home to herself and reprioritize her joy in her life. This realization lead her to identify the 8 core pillars for finding joy in your life and has made a daily commitment to practicing those pillars. Practicing joy, making friends and building community have become a touchstone in her life and she has launched her businesses as a way to help others do the same.

Using DOSE to Reverse Engineer Your Happiness Chemicals

Radha’s mission is focused on helping others open up their neurochemical pathways through movement practices. These practices don’t take much time, but they are a daily investment that is simply non-negotiable. By joining a space where a community can gather and create joy together, you can reverse engineer your happiness chemicals (Dopamine, Oxytocin, Serotonin, and Endorphins) to create functional happiness for yourself and the people around you. By inviting joy into yourself, and then spreading it to those you interact with, you will be able to integrate pleasure stacking into your life and start enjoying more than you ever thought possible.

Are you ready to DOSE your life and pleasure stack through joy practices and movement? Share how you are going to cultivate more joy into your life with me in the comments below!

Quotes

“Sometimes along the way we lose ourselves. And for me, at 30, I had kind of lost myself. And I sort of said to myself, ‘okay, this is the beginning of my path to returning back to joy, returning back to myself, returning home to the deepest sense of belonging and belongingness in me, and then in the humans, I surround myself with, and then all of life’s juice will open from there.” (8:14)

“It was just such a wild experience, to support 15,000 people in opening up to their 2020 vision. Little did we know that Covid would happen, but in that time, in that experience, in that stadium, it was this joy bubble that I will never forget as long as I live.” (16:26)

“How grateful I am at 42, and at 40 years old for my body to have a baby. So to juggle for me is actually a gift, and I really see it as that. So in those moments where I am feeling stressed or feeling overwhelmed with all the responsibilities of being a mom and being a professional, I am constantly reminding myself what a gift it is.” (19:32)

“That’s what practicing joy is, it’s finding movement practices in moderation that aren’t going to crush your body, but that’s going to invite something that you want to do every day because it feels good.” (28:42)

“The reason why men separated us was because they knew if women were too connected and too supportive of each other, that we would just instantly take over the kind of sex species in terms of who would be leading the planet. And I just think this is really the time for us to hold hands as a community of sisters.” (38:02)

In This Episode

• Learn about the ‘secret sauce’ to the successful community that is DAYBREAKER (11:00)
• What it was like to navigate new motherhood while on tour with Oprah (13:55)
• How the DOSE method can help you show up during times of serious adversity (21:58)
• Ways to incorporate joy and movement practices as part of your daily routine (30:15)
• The power of community and surrounding yourself with a supportive collective of women (37:40)

Resources Mentioned

Free 2 week trial of DOSE membership plus 50% off the first month with code “drmariza”

DAYBREAKER Website

Follow DAYBREAKER on Instagram

Follow Radha on Instagram

Grab Dr. Mariza’s Top 11 Self-Care Rituals!