By Jocelyn Kate | Just Jocelyn Things – Nurturing Minds, Bodies, and Imaginations

Happiness is often sold to us as a destination—something we arrive at once we’ve healed enough, achieved enough, or checked off all the right boxes. But the truth is, happiness doesn’t live at the end of the path. It lives within the ride itself.

And life, if we’re honest, isn’t a gentle, paved road. It’s a rollercoaster. Not the glossy amusement park kind—but the unpredictable, creaky kind that jerks you around without warning. One day, you’re climbing—things feel light, manageable, even exciting. The next, your stomach drops. Your plans unravel. You lose your footing and wonder if you’ll ever feel grounded again.

For years, I believed that if I worked hard enough or stayed positive enough, I could avoid the lows altogether. That happiness meant staying at the top. But life kept proving otherwise. The twists and turns kept coming. And eventually, I realized: maybe the goal isn’t to get off the ride. Maybe it’s to learn how to ride it better.

This article isn’t about pretending the lows don’t exist or offering quick-fix solutions. It’s about understanding why those emotional loops and drops hit so hard, and how our brains and bodies are wired to react to them. More importantly, it’s about how we can train ourselves—through practice, presence, and neuroscience—to stay steady even when the world tilts.

Because once we stop trying to flatten the ride and start learning how to ride it, everything changes. We stop bracing for impact. We start breathing through the bends. We learn how to feel joy without clinging to it, and how to meet sorrow without fearing it will last forever.

And that’s when happiness becomes less of a goal—and more of a rhythm.

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Your Brain Was Built for Survival, Not for Smooth Rides

Let’s start with what many of us were never taught: our brains are not wired for constant joy. They’re wired for protection. From an evolutionary standpoint, the human brain developed under conditions where physical threats were constant. Our ancestors weren’t concerned with long-term fulfillment—they were focused on surviving the day. As a result, the brain became extraordinarily good at scanning for danger, remembering pain, and reacting quickly to anything that seemed like a threat.

This survival mechanism is known as the negativity bias—our brain’s tendency to give more weight to negative experiences than positive ones. This isn’t a personal flaw; it’s a deeply ingrained system meant to keep us alive. If our brain had to choose between savoring a moment of peace or preparing for a possible predator, it always chose the latter. And while we may no longer face the same physical dangers, the brain hasn’t caught up. It still reacts to stress, conflict, uncertainty, and even social rejection as if they’re life-or-death situations.

So when life takes an unexpected dip—when we lose a job, have an argument, face rejection, or feel overwhelmed by uncertainty—the nervous system fires off stress signals as if we’re being chased. Cortisol levels spike, heart rate increases, and our thoughts begin racing, looking for a way out. It becomes incredibly hard to access logic, compassion, or optimism in these moments because the brain has entered survival mode.

This is why happiness can feel so slippery. Even when things are going well, your brain may still be waiting for something to go wrong. It’s constantly bracing, anticipating, preparing for the next drop. This vigilance is exhausting. It wears down the nervous system, shortens our emotional bandwidth, and leaves us feeling like peace is always just out of reach.

But here’s the empowering part: that same brain, with all its biases and alarms, is also changeable. Through the science of neuroplasticity, we now understand that the brain is always reshaping itself based on where we place our attention. When we regularly practice gratitude, mindfulness, or reframing negative thoughts, we’re not just “thinking positive”—we’re reinforcing neural pathways that support stability, regulation, and resilience.

In short, we can train our brains to ride the rollercoaster with more ease. Not by avoiding the lows, but by becoming more equipped to handle them. That means more resilience on the drops, more presence in the quiet stretches, and more capacity to actually enjoy the highs without fearing they’ll disappear.

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Riding the Lows Without Derailing

The hardest part of any rollercoaster is the drop—that sudden, disorienting plunge where everything feels out of control. Emotionally, these dips show up as anxiety, grief, exhaustion, or apathy. They often come unannounced and leave us wondering if we’ll ever feel steady again.

But low moments aren’t signs of failure. They’re part of the ride. In fact, our nervous systems are designed to cycle through activation and rest, tension and release. The problem isn’t that we have lows—it’s that we panic when they arrive, thinking they’re permanent.

When stress hits, the brain activates old survival wiring. The default mode network (DMN) kicks in, triggering rumination and self-criticism. Suddenly, you’re not just feeling sadness—you’re becoming it. This mental fusion is what makes emotional lows feel endless.

The antidote is space. Naming your emotions—whether it’s “disappointed,” “frustrated,” or “drained”—creates a buffer between you and the feeling. Research shows that developing emotional granularity (being specific with emotional language) actually helps the brain regulate distress more effectively.

In those moments, you don’t need to overhaul your life. You need small anchors: a short walk, a few deep breaths, light on your skin, a calming voice, a moment of silence. These are nervous system cues that say: I’m still safe. I’m still here.

And if there’s one thing that softens the drop more than anything else—it’s connection. Co-regulation with another person (or even a pet) helps the brain deactivate its alarm bells. It reminds us we’re not alone on the ride.

You don’t need to love the lows. But if you stop resisting them, they lose their power. And in that surrender, you become more resilient—not because life gets easier, but because you become more skilled at staying grounded while it moves.

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Your Cart May Be Different Than Mine

On this rollercoaster of life, we’re all riding in our own carts. Some feel solid and smooth. Others rattle a little with every turn. Some have been reinforced over time with care, therapy, support systems. Others carry the weight of unprocessed grief, trauma, or burnout. Some carts are built for speed, others for pacing. And some of us are still figuring out how to ride without bracing every time the track bends.

That’s why what grounds me in the chaos might not ground you. And that’s not only valid—it’s essential to recognize.

For a long time, I tried to make other people’s tools work for me. I assumed the things that helped everyone else feel “better” should work for me too. But when I sat across from therapists, I didn’t feel relief. I felt pressure to say the right thing. I felt like a mind being analyzed, not a heart being held.

It wasn’t until I started paying closer attention to my own cart—how it moved, what it needed, how it felt safest—that I began to understand what support really meant.

For me, that meant nature. Movement. Solitude. Handwritten pages that no one else would ever read. It meant soft music, a lot of fresh air, and remembering to feed myself when I forgot I was human. It meant reading about the nervous system and finally understanding that my overwhelm wasn’t weakness—it was wiring.

Your cart might be padded with people. Maybe you feel safest in connection—in talking things through, being hugged, being witnessed. Or maybe your version of steadiness lives in silence, or breathwork, or dancing in your kitchen at 2 a.m. Maybe it’s prayer. Maybe it’s sunlight. Maybe it’s boundaries and time away. Maybe it’s creating. Or resting. Or crying. Or laughing until your whole body shakes.

The point isn’t what your cart holds. The point is that it’s yours. And that you know how to reach for what you need when the ride gets rough.

We do ourselves a disservice when we try to force our healing into someone else’s mold. What regulates your system might overstimulate mine. What opens your heart might overwhelm mine. This isn’t about comparison. It’s about curiosity—about honoring that every nervous system, every body, every lived experience needs something slightly different to stay grounded.

So no, your cart may not look like mine. And that’s exactly how it should be.

Your job isn’t to ride like me—it’s to ride like you. With awareness. With intention. With tools that help you breathe through the chaos and reconnect to the part of you that knows how to hold steady, even when the track disappears beneath you.

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Not every part of the ride is dramatic. Some stretches are slow and quiet—flat tracks where nothing seems to happen. Other times, we’re climbing with anticipation or falling without warning. But in between all that, there are tiny, glimmering moments—fleeting, often overlooked—that remind us we’re still here. Still feeling. Still capable of lightness.

Those moments are what steady us. They may not be loud or life-changing. But they are essential.

This is where the science of joy gets interesting. According to psychologist Dr. Barbara Fredrickson, positive emotions—even small ones like contentment, gratitude, or amusement—have a measurable effect on our mental health and nervous system. Her broaden-and-build theory suggests that experiencing even brief moments of positive emotion broadens our awareness and builds long-term psychological resources like resilience, creativity, and social connection.

In plain language: noticing small, good things actually makes us more emotionally flexible. It helps us handle future stress with greater ease. These micro-moments of joy aren’t superficial—they’re stabilizers. They build inner scaffolding that holds us steady through the next turn.

Joy doesn’t have to be big to be powerful. In fact, some of the most regulating forms of joy are the quietest ones: the light shifting across the floor, the way a breeze moves through trees, the warmth of a mug in your hands, the belly-laugh that surprises you in the middle of a hard day.

I’ve learned to look for these moments intentionally, especially when life feels heavy. Not to bypass my pain, but to balance it. I can be grieving and still notice how the sky turns orange at sunset. I can be anxious and still feel the grounding rhythm of my feet on a forest trail.

This is not toxic positivity—it’s nervous system support. It’s letting your brain take in nourishment instead of only feeding on fear.

Because what you focus on, your brain reinforces. If you only ever rehearse your stress, you strengthen those neural pathways. But if you also learn to linger in beauty, in warmth, in gratitude, you create new tracks. You make it easier for your mind to return to joy—not by force, but by familiarity.

And on this rollercoaster of life, those small joys are like handles you can reach for. They don’t stop the ride. But they help you stay upright. They remind you: this is still your ride. You’re still here. And there is still something, however small, worth noticing.

So don’t underestimate the soft moments. The subtle ones. The ordinary ones. Sometimes they’re the only thing keeping you from flying off the track. And more often than not, they’re what make the ride worth it.

Train for the Ride, Not Just the Destination

Most of us are taught to chase a finish line. A place where things finally feel stable, where we’ve “arrived,” where the uncertainty stops and happiness becomes permanent. In our minds, happiness is waiting somewhere at the top of the track—after the promotion, after the healing, after the relationship, after the self-work is done.

But life doesn’t work that way. Neither does your brain.

There is no final destination where the rollercoaster ends and you get to coast peacefully forever. There are moments of joy and expansion, yes—but there will always be movement. Even in your most grounded seasons, life will ask you to keep adjusting, stretching, staying present through change.

Which means happiness can’t be the goal at the end of the ride. It has to be something you practice during the ride.

That’s why we need to train for the ride itself—not just the ideal version of life we’re working toward. And that training happens in the ordinary, daily moments. The ones where no one is watching. The ones where your thoughts feel heavy and you choose to speak gently to yourself anyway. The ones where anxiety rises and you pause to breathe instead of powering through.

These small, seemingly insignificant choices are not just coping strategies—they are rewiring your brain. They are building the emotional muscles you’ll need for every future curve and drop.

Neuroscience shows us that neuroplasticity—the brain’s ability to change—is driven by repetition. When we practice regulating our nervous system, shifting our thoughts, and coming back to the present, we literally carve new neural pathways. Over time, these become our default responses. Not because the ride got easier, but because we got stronger.

This is why daily practices matter. Not because they magically erase pain, but because they make us more skilled at navigating it.

Journaling, breathwork, grounding techniques, gratitude lists, mindful movement—these aren’t just wellness trends. They are tools of resilience. They are like rehearsals for the moments when life throws something unexpected at you and your first instinct is to spiral. With enough practice, that spiral shortens. Your return to center gets quicker. The climb back up doesn’t feel so steep.

And the more you train in the quiet moments, the more you can trust yourself in the chaos. You don’t need to prepare for every possible scenario—because you’ve already prepared yourself to move through it.

So if you’re waiting to feel better once you reach the next big milestone, I invite you to flip the script. Start now. In the middle of the mess. In the stillness between loops. In the moments when nothing feels particularly exciting or resolved.

Because this ride is going to keep moving. The track ahead will hold things you can’t predict. But when you train for the ride—not just the destination—you don’t have to be afraid of what’s coming next.

You’ll know that whatever shows up, you’ve got the capacity to meet it.

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Let the Lows Teach You How to Soften

Every drop on a rollercoaster invites tension. It’s instinctual. You brace your shoulders, clench your jaw, tighten your grip. Your body prepares for impact—even when the drop is part of the design.

We do the same thing emotionally. When life dips, our first reaction is often to harden. To armor up. We distract, we detach, we deny. We try to out-think our feelings or escape them entirely. But in doing so, we miss the opportunity the lows offer us—not to break us, but to soften us.

There is wisdom in the low points. The dips are where truth tends to live—not the polished, filtered kind, but the raw, grounding kind. These moments humble us. They strip away what isn’t essential. They teach us to slow down, to listen, and to meet ourselves with a gentleness that success or ease rarely demands.

Physiologically, this softening matters. When we resist emotions, the brain stays in a heightened state of arousal—trapped in loops of cortisol and adrenaline, unable to access the parasympathetic “rest and digest” state. But when we choose to meet our emotions with awareness and compassion—when we soften instead of brace—we signal safety to the nervous system. That softening literally tells the body: It’s okay to come down now. You’re not in danger.

And here’s where the science and the soul intertwine: softening is not the same as giving up. It’s actually an act of resilience. It’s saying, “I don’t have to fight myself to survive this.” It’s the moment you stop gripping the edges of the cart and instead feel your breath in your chest, your feet on the floor, your heart still beating—proof that you’re still in motion.

Softening might look like allowing yourself to cry without rushing to fix the feeling. Or taking a long, slow walk without trying to “figure anything out.” Or lying on the floor and letting your thoughts swirl until they settle on their own. It might look like canceling plans. Or asking for help. Or simply not performing for a moment.

This kind of softening isn’t weakness. It’s a return to your natural rhythm. A counterbalance to the tightening that modern life often demands. And the more you practice it, the more you realize: you can meet pain without being consumed by it.

In this way, the lows become less of an enemy and more of a teacher. They show you where you’re holding tension. Where you’re abandoning yourself. Where you’re still trying to earn rest or love or worth. And when you soften, you create space to feel without judgment—and in that space, healing happens.

So let the dips be what they are. Let them humble you, ground you, invite you back into your body. You don’t have to rush your way through them. You just have to stay with yourself while you move through them.

Because the ride doesn’t require perfection. It requires presence. And softening is how we stay present when the ride gets rough.

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Final Reflection: Learn the Rhythm, Ride the Ride

The ride isn’t going to stop. Life will keep unfolding in loops and drops and stretches of stillness. No matter how much inner work we do, there will still be moments of contraction, moments of grief, moments when we feel upside down and unsure if the track ahead will ever level out.

But that’s not failure. That’s the rhythm.

Our nervous systems were never meant to stay in one emotional state forever. Just like the heart has to beat, our inner worlds have to move. Expand and contract. Rise and fall. We breathe in, we breathe out. It’s all part of the cycle. And the more we learn to move with it instead of against it, the steadier we become—not because life gets easier, but because we do.

Happiness, in this light, becomes less about staying at the top and more about knowing how to return to yourself no matter where you are on the track.

It means trusting the process when you’re in a freefall, and fully feeling the wind in your hair when you’re rising. It means letting the laughter echo, letting the tears come, letting the still moments stretch out like an exhale. It means making peace with the fact that the ride keeps moving—and choosing, again and again, to stay awake for it.

Through consistent practice—through small daily habits that support our brain and body—we build the capacity to ride with more presence. We don’t shut down as easily. We don’t spiral as far. We remember that we’ve survived other drops before, and we will again.

So no, the goal isn’t to be happy all the time. The goal is to be honest, equipped, and self-aware enough to keep riding—without losing yourself along the way.

Learn your patterns. Find what helps you regulate. Anchor into your own rhythms. Befriend the ride.

Because you weren’t made to stay at the top.You were made to move through it all—with heart, with awareness, and with the wisdom that the ride, as wild as it is, is still worth staying on.