Have you ever looked up from your day-to-day life and realised you can’t remember the last time you felt true joy? I mean the kind that wraps around your whole body like sunlight. The kind that makes you feel alive, present, and connected to yourself.
If so, you’re not alone.
On this warm, windy winter’s day in Brisbane, I recorded episode two of Let Her Speak, and we went deep. Right away.
Because here’s what I keep hearing from so many women: joy feels really far away. And that scares them. It scared me too.
When Joy Feels Like a Stranger
At a recent client event, one of my clients told me she couldn’t even describe what joy looked like anymore. She couldn’t remember what it felt like, where to find it, or how to even start looking. That moment cracked something open for both of us.
If you’re nodding along, if joy feels more like a memory than a present-day experience, let’s talk about why.
Why We Disconnect From Joy
At some point, many of us stop listening to ourselves. Life gets busy. Expectations pile up. We start absorbing subtle (and not-so-subtle) messages that say we should quiet our desires, shrink our needs, or tone ourselves down.
Eventually, we stop tuning into our inner knowing—those gut whispers, those body nudges that tell us what we really want or need. Instead, we begin listening to the outside world: the rules, the opinions, the shoulds.
And the more we do that, the more disconnected we become from ourselves. And with that disconnection? Joy gets buried.
The Nervous System Factor
There’s a biological layer too. Your nervous system’s job is not to chase joy. Its job is to keep you safe. As children, we build nervous system responses that help us survive in our families, schools, and environments. But what helped you feel safe then may now be the very thing pulling you away from the joy you crave.
Anxiety. Overwhelm. People-pleasing. Perfectionism. Control. Chaos. These survival patterns become our default. And unless we notice them, they end up running the show.
So, What Do We Do?
This work isn’t about blaming or judging ourselves. It’s about bringing compassion to the strategies our inner child created to stay safe. That version of you deserves understanding, not shame.
Step one is awareness.
Can you start to notice your reactions, your behaviours, the moments when you feel out of alignment?
Step two is choice.
Once you notice, you get to choose something new. A new way of being. A new thought. A different action. That’s how we start coming back to ourselves.
Maybe today, your new choice is pausing before reacting. Or saying no to something that drains you. Or yes to something that lights you up. Maybe it’s simply letting the sun warm your skin for a few minutes.
Whatever it is, joy gets closer every time you choose yourself.
You Are Not Broken
If joy feels far away right now, please hear this: there is nothing wrong with you.
Your survival system has just been doing its job.
But now you get to do your job as the adult version of you. The version that wants more peace, more alignment, more joy. The version that wants to live, not just survive.
Start small. Start kind. And if you can, let someone safe see the real you as you do it. Because this work? It’s relational. We heal in connection.
You’re worthy of joy. You always have been.
Let yourself come home to that truth.
🎧 Listen to the full episode of Let Her Speak wherever you get your podcasts.
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