# How to Find Joy in Hard Times (and When Your Brain Lies to You) | Jenny Lawson Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/good-life-project-963599/how-to-find-joy-in-hard-times-and-when-your-brain-lies-to-you-jenny-lawson Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/good-life-project-963599/how-to-find-joy-in-hard-times-and-when-your-brain-lies-to-you-jenny-lawson.md Podcast: [Good Life Project](https://stenobird.com/podcast/good-life-project-963599) Published: 2026-03-30T09:00:00+00:00 Episode link: https://shows.acast.com/goodlifeprojectinspirationmotivationhappinessmeaningsuccess/episodes/how-to-find-joy-in-hard-times-and-when-your-brain-lies-to-yo Audio file: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/61de0665cc27c20014ea15cf/e/69c30c6bd8f61cfe6dc38027/media.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/good-life-project-963599/episodes/how-to-find-joy-in-hard-times-and-when-your-brain-lies-to-you-jenny-lawson Duration seconds: 2914 ## Resource Humor won't cure depression. But it might save your life. That's not a metaphor for Jenny Lawson. It's the hard-won truth of more than two decades of living with treatment-resistant depression, anxiety, and the kind of dark seasons that make getting out of bed feel impossible. Most of us hide when we're struggling. We perform wellness for the world and suffer in silence behind closed doors. Jenny took the opposite approach, writing about her darkest moments with such radical honesty and unexpected humor that thousands of people have written back to say those words kept them alive. This conversation explores how she does it, and what the rest of us can learn about finding light and meaning in the hardest places. Jenny Lawson, known to millions as The Bloggess, is a #1 New York Times bestselling author, humorist, and the owner of Nowhere Bookshop, a beloved indie bookstore and bar in San Antonio, Texas. Her books include Let's Pretend This Never Happened, Furiously Happy, You Are Here, and Broken. Her upcoming book, How To Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay (Tips and Tricks that Kept Me Alive, Happy and Creative In Spite of Myself) , arrives March 31, 2026. You'll discover... The single phrase Jenny returns to during every depressive episode that stops her from believing the darkest lies her brain tells her A simple "easy mode" approach to work and daily life that gives you full permission to do less without guilt, and why it often leads to better results for everyone Why sharing your struggle honestly can create an unexpected ripple effect of connection and healing for people you've never met A powerful reframe of what success actually means that has nothing to do with money, status, or bestseller lists How to find "your people" and build real friendship even when you're deep… ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/good-life-project-963599/episodes/how-to-find-joy-in-hard-times-and-when-your-brain-lies-to-you-jenny-lawson/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/good-life-project-963599/how-to-find-joy-in-hard-times-and-when-your-brain-lies-to-you-jenny-lawson.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.