I make a lot of cups of tea. More than is probably considered reasonable.
Over the years they’ve become little markers throughout my day. I put the kettle on, wander back to my desk, get caught up in emails or writing, and before I know it, I’ve got a stone-cold cup of tea sitting beside me. It makes me smile every time because it reminds me how easily we can disappear into doing. Half an hour has passed, and I haven’t been present for any of it.
Then there are other days when I make the same exact cup of tea and something completely different happens. I stand at the window while the kettle boils and notice the rain tapping against the glass or the breeze moving through the trees outside. I wrap my hands around the mug before taking the first sip. For a minute or two, nothing changes about my life, yet I experience it differently because I’m there for it.
That probably sounds like a very small thing and for me that’s the whole point; we’ve become so used to believing that wellbeing arrives through the big moments that we overlook the ordinary ones. We wait for the holiday, the promotion, the relationship, the weekend, the moment life finally settles down. Joy becomes something we’ll experience later, once everything else has been dealt with.
Except life has a habit of filling the space we leave for it. There’s always another email, another load of washing, another school form to sign, another deadline, another responsibility. We become incredibly efficient at getting through our days, but somewhere along the way many of us stop really experiencing them.
It’s something I’ve noticed time and time again in the women I work with. They’re capable, thoughtful and generous. They spend their lives caring for the people around them and keeping everything moving. They know what their children need, what their partner needs, what their colleagues expect and what everyone else seems to need from them.
Ask them what they need, though, and the conversation often becomes much quieter… actually, let me put that another way. Ask them what they need and there’s often a long pause. Because they’ve become so used to looking outwards that they haven’t asked themselves that question for a very long time.
Women haven’t forgotten how to be joyful, but many of us have become disconnected from ourselves. The thing is, once that happens, joy starts to feel like something we must chase rather than something we naturally notice.
We’ve Been Looking in the Wrong Place
I sometimes wonder whether we’ve accidentally turned wellbeing into another job. There has never been more information available to us. We can listen to podcasts on our morning walk, read books on holiday, follow therapists, coaches and psychologists online and have endless advice delivered to our phones every day. I’ve learnt a huge amount from other people over the years and I’m grateful for that.
What concerns me is what happens when we start believing that someone else always knows us better than we know ourselves. I’ve worked with women who could explain nervous system regulation, boundaries and self-worth better than I could. They’ve done the courses, filled journals with reflections and spent years trying to become a happier, calmer version of themselves. Yet when they’re faced with a decision, they still look around for someone to tell them what they should do.
The thing is, I can totally understand why; many of us have spent years becoming experts in everyone else’s lives. We have become so good at anticipating other people’s needs and meeting their expectations that we gradually lose touch with our own. We don’t notice it happening because it happens slowly, over years rather than days.
For me, that’s where reconnection begins. Not by asking, “What’s the right thing to do?” but by asking, “What feels true for me?”
That question changed my own life. Leaving a career I’d spent more than twenty years building wasn’t a logical decision on paper. I had security, stability and responsibilities that mattered and my head could list every reason to stay.
But another part of me kept whispering that I’d outgrown the life I’d built. I realised I wasn’t choosing between security and risk. I was choosing between certainty and alignment. One allowed me to stay exactly where I was and the other invited me to become more of who I’d always been.
That didn’t make the decision easy. It was frightening, and there were plenty of moments when I questioned myself, but what steadied me was remembering that I’d faced uncertainty before. Life had already taught me that I could survive difficult decisions, adapt when things didn’t go to plan and find my feet again.
We often underestimate how much wisdom we’ve already gathered from living our own lives. Sometimes the next step isn’t finding another expert, it’s trusting the person your own life has been shaping all along.
Joy Doesn’t Ask Us to Pretend
One of the reasons I care so much about joy is because I’ve seen enough of life to know it isn’t always easy. I spent more than twenty years working in child protection working with people at the lowest points of their life. My own life has brought me its own share of heartbreak, difficult decisions and uncertainty too. None of that sits comfortably alongside the idea that joy is only for people whose lives are going well.
In my experience, joy and grief have never been enemies. You can miss someone deeply and still laugh until your stomach hurts. You can feel anxious about tomorrow and still notice how beautiful the sky looks on the drive home. Those moments don’t cancel each other out. They’re simply reminders that our lives are always bigger than the hardest thing we’re carrying.
There’s also something reassuring happening in our brains when we begin paying attention to these moments. Our nervous system is constantly taking in information about the world around us. If all we ever notice is pressure, problems and everything that’s left to do, it’s hardly surprising that we begin to feel as though life is one long list of things to survive.
When we pause long enough to notice something that feels grounding, comforting or life-giving, we’re sending ourselves a different message. For a few moments, we’re reminded that we’re safe enough to stop, breathe and reconnect with ourselves.
That’s why I see joy as a way of coming home to yourself, not simply another wellbeing strategy. Perhaps that’s where it starts: Instead of a dramatic life change or another promise to become a better version of yourself, it may start with your next cup of tea. And maybe this time you’ll drink it while it’s still warm.
