Listen to the episode Season 6 | Ep 1
On this episode of the Coaching Studio
Joy Isn’t a Mood, It’s a Practice: Pamela Larde on the Multidimensional Framework of Joy
Dr. Pamela Larde began studying joy in December 2019, expecting to spend nine or ten months buried in the literature. Three months in, the world shut down, and her research on joy became a live, real-time study of who reaches for it under pressure, and who can’t quite believe it’s allowed.
Pamela’s path to this work wasn’t a straight line. It started with first-generation college students, then broadened to include combat veterans reintegrating into civilian life, and later to people rebuilding after divorce. Different populations, one question underneath all of it: how do people not just survive hardship, but keep fighting for their own aliveness? Joy is the answer that kept surfacing.
In this conversation, Pamela and Lyssa unpack her Multidimensional Framework of Joy- four dimensions: well-being, connection, integration, and liberation- and why well-being has to come first, even when nothing else in a person’s life is in order. They dig into “perceived joy,” Pamela’s term for what happens when someone skips their own well-being and reaches for the feeling of joy anyway, often at someone else’s expense, and how that idea reframes the way we think about toxic leadership. They also talk about “mental stamina” and what builds it, what a “joy enabler” is and why having just one in your life can change everything, and joy strategies for surviving a boss or a season that isn’t going to change anytime soon.
The episode closes with Pamela’s book recommendation, Let Your Life Speak by Parker Palmer, and her case for why joy, unlike happiness, doesn’t require your circumstances to be good. It requires a decision.
Our Guest Dr. Pamela Larde
About the Host
Lyssa deHart ditched her therapy practice to become a Leadership Confidence Coach. Along the way she discovered a passion for professional coaching and wanted to find ways to share that passion with the world. Come join her in discovering and meeting some of the most amazing professional coaches on the planet. Her goal is to inspire coaches. Lyssa is the author of Sticky Outcomes: at the Intersection of Coaching, Neuroscience, and Lasting Change, StoryJacking: Change Your Dialogue, Transform Your Life, The Reflective Coach - a 12 Month Journal, and Light Up: the Science of Coaching with Metaphors. Lyssa is an ICF MCC Coach, PCC Assessor, Certified Mentor Coach, and Coach SuperVisor. Lyssa uses her understanding of the ICF Core Competencies, combined with her knowledge of Neuroscience, to work with people to become extraordinary professional coaches. Let's Go!
