I listened to the Joy Lab Podcast Episode 103. Sympathetic Joy & Emotional Contagion before writing this post.
What it is
The phrase “sympathetic joy” comes from a word used in Buddhism: mudita. It’s a Pali word that means “taking delight in someone else’s good fortune.” Sympathetic joy is one of the four immeasurables or divine abodes in Buddhist psychology. These are mind states that are part of our human inheritance. We can’t develop them because we already have them. We can recognize and practice them. The other immeasurables are loving-kindness, compassion, and equanimity.
Psychologist Henry Emmons thinks of the four immeasurables as the qualities of the awakened heart. “These are positive qualities,” he points out “that can be cultivated.” He explains that we are always capable of learning new things no matter how old we are. It’s the nature of the brain (neuroplasticity). We can learn helpful things and/or damaging things. “These four,” he says, “would be at the top of the list of good pathways.” Cultivating them can make us better and happier people.
Psychologist Aimee Prasek says that sympathetic joy is the natural next step after our previous theme of gratitude. Sympathetic joy, says Prasek is “gratitude on steroids.” At first the idea of celebrating each other’s wins sounds natural. We all win. It’s not so easy. Our ego-centered thoughts intrude. “Why should I celebrate your wins when you haven’t celebrated mine?” Or “Why didn’t I get that job?” Or “Why do I have to be the one who loses?”
Emmons believes that the single greatest obstacle to joy is the belief that we are all separate human beings. In fact, we are intimately connected. Your suffering is my suffering. Your joy is my joy. He quotes first Corinthians from the Bible: “if one part suffers, every part suffers with it. If one part is honored, every part rejoices.”
Feeling joy for each other increases our happiness. Why just feel joy for yourself? There are 8 billion people in the world. Practicing sympathetic joy increases your chances of being happy by 8 billion times.
Emotional contagion
There is a term called “emotional contagion.” Our mental and physical states are affected by the mental and physical states of others around us. We are interconnected creatures. When we are aware of that fact, we are less likely to be upset or thrown off by events. One aspect of emotional contagion is called “mimicry.” Humans and other creatures tend to mirror the facial expressions, vocal sounds, and actions of those around them. Think about yawning, laughing, and crying for instance. When we see someone doing those things, we want to join them.
When we are infants, we depend on our caregivers. Aligning with their emotional and physiological states is a survival technique. It’s not one we grow out of. You can probably remember a time when you “caught the mood” of someone close to you. You were feeling fine but calling them and hearing their complaints brought you down. Prasek reports that it is easier to catch emotions that we might call negative. That’s why it’s important that we practice things like sympathetic joy.
We come by it naturally. Prasek describes playing with her three-year-old daughter, jumping the cracks on the driveway. When mom successfully jumped a crack, her daughter was gleefully excited for her. As we age, though, we develop ideas of ambition and fairness that get in the way of sympathetic joy. Carefully curated lives we see on social media leave us feeling lacking and jealous. Everyone looks so happy and crows about their accomplishments. (A friend once called this “comparing your inside to their outside.”)
Cognitive distortions
Emmons describes two cognitive distortions or mistaken ways of thinking, from which humans suffer: the fallacies of fairness and scarcity. We are taught about fairness when we are very young. If I have three apples, then you deserve three apples too. What is there are only five apples? Then we scramble to be the kid who gets three. These are called fallacies because they aren’t true. The universe is not a fair place. I can take wonderful care of my health and still be diagnosed with an incurable disease. While some resources are limited, many are not. Love, joy, gratitude… All the “positive” emotions that make life beautiful are not in limited supply. In fact, the more we practice them, the more we seem to experience.
An example of sympathetic joy
As an example of sympathetic joy, Prasek reads the poem Gate A-4 by Naomi Shihab Nye. In it, the poet describes a time in the Albuquerque airport. Nye helped an older Arab woman, distressed by the news of a flight delay. She didn’t speak much English but relaxed after Nye translated the situation for her. The woman offered cookies to other travelers at the gate. The delay became a joyful party. Read the poem and enjoy.
When I catch myself feeling envious because other people are able to enjoy what I cannot, I remember the word mudita. The sound makes me smile. I remind myself to relax and be happy for someone else’s good fortune. I can’t attend the Taylor Swift concert, but my husband and daughter can. If I let it, their excitement can be contagious.
In your journal
- Describe a time when you were joyful and able to share it with someone who cared for you.
- Have you experienced a moment of “emotional contagion”? Describe it.
- Are we separate? Explain why or why not.