The Joy Reset: Rewiring our Brains and Discovering our Capacity to Cultivate Joy. With Dr. MaryCatherine McDonald

Untangle

Health & Fitness

4.2 • 772 Ratings

🗓️ 2 December 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Our guest today is Dr. MaryCatherine McDonald, Trauma researcher and Author of the book, "The Joy Reset: Six Ways Trauma Steals Happiness and How to Get It Back.” Her book isn’t just about finding joy; it’s about rewiring our brains and rediscovering our power to cultivate joy EVEN in the darkest moments of life.

She describes the barriers that keep us from accessing joy—hypervigilance, emotional numbing, fear of loss, conditioning, guilt, and shame—and then defines ways to tap into positive emotions that can become the very foundation of psychological resilience.

In our interview she shares some exercises that make joy, hope and gratitude both bite-sized and accessible and how they can show up even in our toughest moments.

I love how she weaves neuroscience into her exploration of trauma and joy, explaining how our brains are biologically wired to both adapt to trauma and heal from it. And…good news…we ARE always biologically capable of joy.

Quote from her website: "Joy does not exist only in the moments that are free of pain. In fact, the brightest, tiniest, most important pieces can only be found in the dark. I want to teach you how to harness and amplify the power of that glinting magic–because this sustainable, endless light source will do more than help you get through your darkest, scariest, loneliest times."

As always, we’re untangle, the podcast from Muse the brain sensing headband that helps to transform your brain. Use promo code untangle 15 at choosemuse.com for your discount.

Resource: https://www.drmcmcdonald.com/

Thanks, as always, to our sponsors. Rula. Quince. Born Shoes.

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Transcript

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1:07.6	career and like you actually want.
1:14.5	Welcome. start building the career and like you actually want. Welcome to Untangle. I'm Patricia Carpice. Our guest today is Dr. Mary Catherine
1:19.5	McDonald, Trauma researcher and author of the book, The Joy Reset, Six Ways Trauma,
1:24.7	Steals Happiness, and How to Get It Back. Her book isn't just about
1:29.3	fighting joy. It's about rewiring our brains and rediscovering our power to cultivate joy
1:35.2	even in our darkest moments. She describes the barriers that keep us from accessing joy,
1:42.3	hypervigilance, emotional numbing, fear of loss, conditioning, guilt,
1:47.3	and shame, and then defines ways to tap into positive emotions that can become the very foundation
1:53.9	of our psychological resilience. In our interview, she shares some exercises that make joy,
2:00.5	hope, and gratitude, bite-sized, and accessible,
2:04.1	and how they can show up even in our toughest moments.
2:08.5	I love how she weaves neuroscience into her exploration of trauma and joy,
2:12.8	explaining how our brains are biologically wired to both adapt to trauma, but also to heal from it.
2:19.6	And the good news is we are always biologically capable of joy.
2:25.0	As always, we're Untangle, the podcast from Muse, the brain sensing headband that helps to transform
	...

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