Choosing to Feel Good
If I had to describe my father’s extraordinary healing journey in one short sentence, it would be this: “Mendek Rubin pursued joy with unwavering determination.”
In my life, I’ve been trying to balance two equally important goals: embracing all of my difficult emotions without judgment, censorship, or repression, while consciously inviting and encouraging positive feelings as much as possible.
In Buddhism, pain is viewed as the physical or emotional discomfort inherent in life, while suffering is seen as the result of the mind’s resistance or attachment to that pain. Although pain is inevitable, suffering is not. Just like my father, we all have the agency to make joy our North Star.
With 2025 just beginning, I found myself contemplating how I could make this new year just a little more joyous than the previous one. The answer that instantly arose was this: I could dance more! Curious why dancing is so powerfully uplifting for me, I decided to do a little research.
Myra dancing with her son Jeff at his wedding in 2022
It turns out that one of the many reasons dancing to music we enjoy quickly elevates our mood is because it reduces the stress hormone cortisol while triggering the release of neurotransmitters like serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine, which are closely linked to mood regulation and pleasant feelings. Even small actions like stretching and walking can initiate this mood-lifting process.
I find it extremely fascinating that humans have the capacity to swiftly and profoundly shift how we feel by harnessing the power of movement, posture, sound, breath, thoughts, and visualization.
One of my father’s central joy-pursuing strategies that I’ve been employing much more lately is positive self-talk. My dad discovered that when he fed himself a steady diet of happy thoughts and consciously focused on all that brought him delight, his emotional state was quickly transformed.
From an evolutionary perspective, the human tendency to focus more on the negative than the positive is a survival mechanism meant to keep us cautious about threats. To feel more relaxed and joyful, we have to consciously work to overcome this inherent negativity bias. Negative thoughts activate the amygdala, leading to the release of stress hormones like cortisol, which can make us feel anxious or overwhelmed. In contrast, positive thoughts engage the prefrontal cortex and release feel-good neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin.
These days, I’ve been much more aware of the emotional and energetic impact of my thoughts. When I think about something that’s painful, I immediately feel my energy darken and contract. In contrast, when I think about something I love, my energy immediately brightens and expands. As my own personal caretaker, I’m realizing being intentional about the nature of my thoughts is one of my most important jobs.
In Peace Is Every Breath, Thich Nhat Hanh writes, “We know the mind can have that ‘homing pigeon’ tendency of always going back to old, familiar haunts of pain and misery. Mindfulness—recognition—helps us drop that habit of continually reliving the past. Tell yourself, ‘No: I don’t want to go back into that again. I don’t want to keep lulling myself into melancholy with those old songs.’”
In addition to the character of our thoughts, Thich Nhat Hanh often spoke about the connection between our physical actions and emotional states, especially as it relates to the transformative power of smiling. He says, “Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.”
Calligraphy by Thich Nhat Hanh
One of the reasons behind this bidirectional response is that our brains interpret emotional states based on our body’s signals—“I’m smiling, so I must be happy.” This can also manifest in less beneficial ways, such as “my muscles are tense, so there must be something to be afraid of.”
Research has shown that simply changing our posture can influence our mood and confidence, as well as how others perceive us. Just like smiling can make us feel happier, adopting a strong posture—like Wonder Woman, standing strong with feet apart, hands on hips and chest lifted, or a “Victory Pose” with arms raised enthusiastically in a V-shape, like after winning a race—“tricks” our brains into feeling more powerful and assertive, even if we are initially feeling nervous or insecure.
Katie Dutcher welcoming the New Year in Big Sur
My qigong teacher—renowned qigong master Lee Holden—often talks about how moving slowly (like when doing qigong flows) communicates to our body that there is nothing we need to run from, nothing to fear. My daily qigong practice is slowly teaching me how to calm my nervous system and live in a more relaxed way.
Lee also talks about how breath serves as a powerful bridge between body and mind. “When we’re stressed,” Lee explains, “Our breath is shallow and choppy. When we’re relaxed, our breath is deep and even. The amazing thing about breath is that the relationship also works in the reverse; by changing the way we breathe, we can change the way we feel.”
I’ve also been benefiting from something I learned from the brilliant life coach Martha Beck, who suggests responding to something confusing, frightening or upsetting with the questioning sound, “hmmm….” She explains that this simple pause helps us shift from a reactive state of blame, fear or anger into a state of curiosity—a mindset that is calmer, more reflective, and open to new possibilities. The magic of “hmmm…” is partly physical; the act of humming activates the vagus nerve, soothing the nervous system and fostering a sense of calm and well-being.
Once we make the choice to choose to feel good, there are simple but powerful ways that the feedback loop between body and mind can support us. We will explore many of them in our upcoming free online workshop next Saturday, January 18, Mind-Body Alchemy: Body as Catalyst for Joy & Empowerment with Katie Dutcher. If you sign up and can’t attend live, you’ll receive a recording within a few days. and We hope you will join us!
