The Joy Edit #14
- Chloe Markham
- May 14
- 2 min read
A regular edit for your joy.
Nervous system regulation tool
Soften your vision
WHY: Focused, narrow vision is your nervous system's hunting-and-threat mode — it's what your eyes do when something needs solving. Soft, wide vision is the opposite: it's the state prey animals drop into when the threat has passed. Your brain reads this soft panoramic vision as a safety signal and starts to downregulate accordingly.
HOW: Soften your eyes — don't focus on anything specific, just let your gaze go wide and lazy. Take in the edges of your vision, the periphery, without moving your eyes to look directly at anything. Hold it for 30–60 seconds (and don't forget to breathe).
Try it before switching tasks next and notice what happens.
Listen: The Queen Is Dead
Yes, I'm 36 and I'm only just realising The Smiths are seriously brilliant. This album is my new favourite thing, especially Cemetry Gates which is on a permanent repeat.
On playing the violin badly, wiggling in the kitchen, and swapping improvement for enjoyment.
A TV show I'm loving: Being Gordon Ramsay
Might sound trite, but this is a proper inspiration. He tells the story of coming from super humble backgrounds, of his brother's heroin addiction, and of working hard to build something brilliant. Just brace yourself for learning it was something like £32k for a meal at his Grand Prix restaurant... 🤯
"Scientists recorded more than 1,500 species critical to the marine ecosystem" — brilliant findings for marine protection!
Behind the scenes:
How do you find full, proper calm?
One of Joyful’s new members asked me this earlier this week.
She was already doing breathwork, yoga, walks, noticing...
She'd come out the other side of burnout. By any reasonable metric, she was doing brilliantly.
But she was also trying to find the "right" class to do first. The "logical" order. The correct sequence for maximum calm.
Is there any wonder? Our lives are saturated with productivity culture. Getting things right and optimising everything is just what we do.
But, of course, this approach is basically the least kind, the least healing, the least calm thing you can possibly do.
The pursuit of calm done correctly is just anxiety with better branding.
If you’re feeling like she did, try accepting how you’re feeling first, then respond accordingly.
You can’t get that wrong.
Sounds small, but this is the entire way through.
TLDR: allow yourself to not be calm, if you're not calm. That's not a failure.
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