Why Does Joy Feel So Hard For Me?

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PART ONE

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Why Is Joy Hard for Me?

A trauma-informed exploration of joy, safety, and the nervous system

If you’ve ever noticed yourself feeling uncomfortable in moments that are supposed to feel good—moments of happiness, connection, ease, or joy—you’re not alone.

For many people with a history of trauma, joy can feel unfamiliar, fleeting, or even unsafe. Sometimes it shows up as anxiety when things are going well. Sometimes it’s a subtle sense of waiting for something to go wrong. And sometimes it’s pulling away from goodness before it has a chance to land.

This can be confusing, especially if you’ve done healing work or your life feels more stable now. You may find yourself wondering, why can’t I just enjoy this? Or what’s wrong with me that joy feels hard?

The answer isn’t that something is wrong with you.

The answer lives in the nervous system.

Trauma doesn’t just affect our thoughts or memories. It shapes how the nervous system learns to respond to the world.

When someone grows up in environments marked by unpredictability, neglect, emotional harm, or chronic stress, the nervous system adapts for survival. Its primary job becomes protection—staying alert, bracing for impact, or preparing for what might go wrong next.

Over time, this protective state can become the nervous system’s default.

The nervous system is constantly scanning the environment and the body with one central question:

Am I safe right now?

When the answer feels uncertain, the body prioritizes protection over openness. This is not a conscious choice. It’s a biological response shaped by lived experience.

Joy requires presence.

Joy requires openness.

Joy often involves connection and vulnerability.

For a nervous system shaped by trauma, those qualities can feel risky.

If joy was followed by disappointment, loss, criticism, or harm earlier in life, the body may learn to associate positive experiences with danger. In that case, pulling back from joy isn’t self-sabotage—it’s self-protection.

Even positive emotions can activate the nervous system. Excitement, pleasure, laughter, and love all bring energy and sensation into the body. If the system isn’t used to holding that level of sensation safely, it may respond by dampening it, disconnecting, or shutting it down.

This is why some people notice that when something good happens, they feel anxious instead of relaxed, emotionally guarded, disconnected or numb, or overwhelmed rather than joyful.

This doesn’t mean healing has failed. It means the nervous system is responding exactly as it was trained to respond.

One of the most important parts of trauma-informed healing is learning to view these patterns with compassion.

Blocking joy doesn’t mean there is something wrong with you.

It means your body adapted intelligently to its environment.

Your nervous system did what it needed to do to keep you safe. And even now, it may still be operating from those early lessons—not because it’s stubborn, but because it hasn’t yet learned that safety and goodness can exist at the same time.

That learning doesn’t happen through force or positive thinking. It happens through experience.

Instead of asking, why can’t I feel joy like other people, a more helpful question might be:

What has my nervous system learned about safety, and what does it still need to feel secure enough to open?

Joy isn’t something we force ourselves into. It’s something the body allows when it feels safe enough to do so.

And that safety can be built—slowly, gently, and with care.

In the next post, we’ll explore what it actually means to build capacity for joy, and how expanding that capacity doesn’t require bypassing pain or pushing yourself to feel

differently, but instead working with the

nervous system in a way that honors its pace.

With Love

Carrie Payne