Why Do People Fear the Pleasure in Joy?

Kelly McGonigal says people fear the pleasure in joy because they confuse pleasure that can get them into trouble with the pleasure built into joy itself. Joy activates the pleasure circuitry of the brain, and you feel it in the body as pleasure. A lot of people still treat pleasure as sinful, wrong, immoral, or shameful, and some take a puritanical view of it.

The same protection shows up around good emotions, not only around pleasure. When you felt really good, that was sometimes when your heart got broken, when you were taken advantage of, or when you got disappointed. Feeling grateful, hopeful, or good about yourself can start a kind of immune response. It feels like putting your guard down, something you cannot risk again, so you have to protect yourself.