Leaning into vorfreude for wellbeing
A new (to me) word for a fundamental shift towards joy to boost your mood and resilience
Hello you!
Mental resilience is a hot topic for me. I understand and see so clearly when I work with my clients, the link between having and cultivating/ building resilience and the ability to be creative, take action, reach goals and get further in their business, career and life.
Resilience does tend to make us think of toughness, pushing through, the ability to deal with setbacks and hard times etc - but one of the ways that we also become more resilient is by leaning in to all available opportunities for joy and happiness.
Because a life where you look for and appreciate those opportunities will naturally make it easier to weather the more stormy aspects of it.
People found this during the pandemic, where despite the horrors, the anxieties and the uncertainty, people rediscovered their love of nature and outdoors through the daily walks, the lift in mood that a quick chat with a neighbour can give you, how absorbing it is to bake bread, to get lost in a jigsaw, the pleasure of taking time out to sit at the table and colour in with small children.
Our worlds got smaller but often got richer when we were relying on and focusing on small pleasures to keep us going through the tougher times.
Being in the moment with small moments of joy, satisfaction and connection is of course where it’s at in terms of living a fulfilling life. My own gratitude practice operates like this, in that I not only reflect at the end of a day on what I have to feel grateful for, but as much as possible, in the present moment as life and the day unfolds.
But also it is in the looking forward to things and keeping them in mind which is where the wonderful word ‘vorfreude’ comes in (pronounced vor-froy-duh).
Vorfreude is the anticipation of joy. The additional buzz you can get from a good thing before it has even happened.
We are all familiar with the pleasure we find in looking forward to big events; a holiday, someone’s wedding, a party, a house move, a visit from overseas friends. But we do not so often pay attention to the pleasure to be found in anticipating small, more regular joys. Everyday things and occurrences which can give us a boost in mood and wellbeing.
Why is this important? Because every day counts. Why postpone joy or only pay attention to it for the bigger things? Why go through days or weeks of your life not paying attention to and gaining satisfaction from actions and decisions that you can make every day? Why only look forward to and note the big epochs in life?
Each day we get to design our life. Yes some things are not within our control. Far from it. But lots of things are.
Imagine what would happen to your contentment, happiness and therefore resilience levels if you paid radical attention to the smaller aspects of daily life, and grabbed hold of this concept of vorfreude and started to find joys to anticipate every day?
When my husband and I go out for a dog walk each morning, at one point, one of us will say to the other ‘are you looking forward to coffee?’ meaning the coffee we share after the walk and before the working day starts. It’s one of those silly jokes between couples who have been together a looooong time, but it’s also the anticipation of the joy of a delicious, hot cup of coffee.
And so we enjoy the coffee twice; once as we walk around, often in the rain, and then again, when we sit down to drink it.
We can also plan small pleasures and joys in our lives to look forward to, daily and this is something I highly recommend.
By always having things to look forward to and framing them as such, we give ourselves this double hit - in the anticipation and in the having.
In many ways our brain and body doesn’t know the difference between thinking of something pleasurable and actually experiencing it. Just as when you think about eating a slice or lemon and your mouth waters, so your body produces happy hormones at the thoughts of fun and joy. So you can enjoy the mental uplift you get from seeing a good friend just by anticipating it happening.
Try it now. Think of something you are looking forward to today or this week, go through it in your mind and notice how you feel.
So what small joys and pleasures can you fit into the next few days and weeks?
Some small joys I can anticipate today and during the rest of the week are as follows;
The bath and book session I have planned later
Watching another episode of a TV series I am enjoying with my son
Catching up with friends over coffee on Friday morning
Reading Kokoro by
The feeling after my weekly yoga class tonight
The 30 mins I sit with a sleeping puppy on me on the sofa each evening
Teaching my son to make risotto
Completing some DIY work on the kitchen
The first session with a new client
If you want to boost your resilience, try boosting your frequency of both anticipating and feeling joy. Because when we are more content, we are better equipped to handle all the curveballs and the tougher parts of life.
I’d love to hear how you engage with ‘vorfreude’ and the things you have planned or the daily rituals and habits that get you through life.
With love,
Sarah x
BTW: When researching Vorfreude I came across this :) I wonder if it will give us the joy of anticipation of washing our floors?! I’m honestly tempted to buy it…
I’ve been working on this but I didn’t have a word for it!
A new word for me too. And yet one of my favourite states to be in!