Choosing Joy

Recalibrating the brain's negativity bias

Today is the day! UP TO SPEED: The Groundbreaking Science of Women Athletes is officially out in the world! If you see it out in the world, would you take a picture and share it with me? (I’m @cyu888 on Instagram and Twitter.)

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My brain likes to do this thing. It will take a piece of information and turn it over—front to back, side to side—looking at it from all angles. It’s looking for the cracks or the kinks in the surface. It’s faults and flaws. It’s really good at picking up the barest of hairline fractures. If there’s even the smallest defect, my brain will toss the information back into the discard pile, discredited.

Most of my life, I’ve carefully evaluated every situation in front of me. I guess it was a coping mechanism of sorts. My dad died when I was 8 and my mom was understandably sad.

But as a kid, I didn’t understand that grief and grieving were a normal human emotion. I just wanted my mom to be less sad. So I would constantly scan my environment, attuned to anything that could set off her sadness and tip off a downward spiral. I got really good at noticing all the possible negative outcomes. If I could steer us away from that, we could avoid any sad episodes. It was my superpower.

A discerning and discriminating brain is helpful in certain circumstances but with my brain always on the lookout, it’s gotten really good at this one job. Too good. Except that now, when it notices the negative stuff, it tends to get stuck there, like a scratch on a record. It keeps snagging and repeating the same clip over and over.

It’s taken a lot of work and therapy to uncouple the two impulses—to see the potential negative but not let it derail me. To hold it. Acknowledge it. And then let it go. It’s like having the presence of mind to pick up the needle and move it to a different part of the record. But it’s also training my brain to allow for the possibility of other options.

Heading into pub week has been interesting. As much as I’ve tried to detach myself from the any expectations about how the book will perform, all I’ve been able to do is focus on the negative. The publicity that I didn’t get. Interviews I wasn’t asked for. The op-eds I didn’t place. I’m terrified that the book won’t sell well and that no one will care and that it will fade into the ether. And if it does, I’m worried about what the means for any future projects.

Basically, I’ve pretty much convinced myself that this book and its launch will be a disaster and a failure.

I was pretty tender yesterday morning. (Let’s just say that I was all up in my feelings and started the morning off in tears. Geez, cancer season is just around the corner, isn’t it?)

But I had to head over to my Books Are Magic, one of my favorite local independent bookstores, to sign pre-ordered copies of UP TO SPEED. So I cleaned myself up and left the apartment.

On the way over, I tried to prepare myself. I figured there would be maybe 10 preordered books. Maybe 15, if I was lucky. I told myself not to get my hopes up.

When I got there, they pulled three books off the shelf. I signed them while they were looking around the back. Was that it? I took a deep breath to steady myself. Three books was three books! Three books is three more than zero! Don’t be upset!

But then they started pulling out some more books off a shelf that had a note saying: “To be signed. And I realized that the whole shelf was filled with my books. Books that people bought. Books that people wanted me to sign.

I recognized so many names on the sales slips—family, friends, and acquaintances, some people I haven’t talked to in years. It felt like representatives from all the different periods of my life were gathered together with me in that room. I could imagine everyone’s smiling face and wow, I felt so supported in that moment.

Honestly, it filled me with happiness. For the rest of the day, I made a deliberate effort to look for joy and to choose joy.

And that’s how I chose to close out yesterday—the day before pub day—by holding that memory close. By holding joy close to my heart.

I can’t control what happens next. No one can. But knowing that there are so many people behind me and who are cheering me on is a tremendous gift.

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What I’m Reading

• I love this story about a whole generation of Connies (named after Connie Chung). While my name's not Connie, the stories here are so reminiscent of my own.

• This piece about Heather Armstrong, aka Dooce, who died by suicide last week. The news hit me in an unexpected way. It's not like I knew her. I was just one of many, many people who read her writing.

What I’m Listening To

• This episode of Making Strides with Mirna Valerio, Stefanie Flippin, and Carolyn Su about being women of color in the running and outdoor industries. There was a part of the conversation where they were discussing how when you push back against the stereotype, it can be jarring for other people because they can no longer put you in that stereotype that you're trying to break from.

• This episode of Death, Sex & Money with Fran Lebowitz aired back in November. It had me laughing out loud while I was walking down the sidewalk.

Thanks for being here. More soon.

Christine