Welcome.
Thank you for being here.
And for choosing to make yourself a priority today.
This is your Mandala Card of the Day.
A gentle pause to breathe.
Reflect.
And explore.
Before we begin,
I invite you to have a journal or a blank page nearby,
Along with a pen.
This session includes time for journaling.
For now,
Allow yourself to settle in.
There's nothing to fix,
Nothing to figure out.
Just this moment.
Endless breath.
Let's begin by settling into this moment.
Gently close your eyes if that feels comfortable.
Allow your shoulders to soften.
Let your hands rest wherever they feel at ease.
Take a slow breath in through your nose.
Take a gentle exhale out through your mouth.
Again,
Inhale slowly.
And exhale fully.
With each inhale,
Breathe in lightness,
Warmth,
Openness.
With each exhale,
Release tension,
Worry.
And the hurry of your day.
One more time,
Breathing in steady and calm.
And breathing out long and soft.
Now allow your breath to return to its natural rhythm.
Notice the quiet space you have created Notice that you are here.
Present.
Fully aware.
Support it.
And love.
The theme for today is noticing.
It is about noticing joy.
I want to begin with a question.
When did you last stop in the middle of an ordinary moment?
And think,
This is good.
This,
Right here.
This is enough.
For most of us,
The honest answer is not recently enough.
Not because our lives are lacking.
But because we've been trained.
Neurologically and culturally.
To move quickly past what is good.
And to linger on what is difficult.
Incomplete or uncertain.
Neuroscientist Rick Hansen describes this as the negativity bias.
The brain's tendency to notice and hold on to what goes wrong,
What feels threatening,
Or what remains unresolved.
Negative experiences,
Hansen explains,
Stick to the brain like Velcro,
While positive experiences slide off like Teflon.
This is not a personal failing.
It is simply how the brain evolved.
Threat and danger needed to be remembered.
Moments of ease and joy.
Did not feel urgent enough to encode.
But here's what makes this research so genuinely hopeful.
You can change this.
Not through willpower.
Not through forcing positivity.
But through a simple,
Deliberate practice.
That Hansen calls taking in the good.
When you notice something positive.
Even something small.
And you stay with it for just 20 to 30 seconds.
Allowing yourself to feel it fully in your body.
Letting it registers real and meaningful.
You are doing something neurologically significant.
You're converting a passing mental state.
Into a lasting neural trait.
You are literally rewiring your brain to hold more joy.
Not by creating experiences that aren't there,
But by fully receiving the ones that are.
Psychologist Barbara Fredrickson's Broaden and Build Theory.
Add something important here.
Positive emotions,
Joy,
Curiosity,
Warmth,
Gratitude.
They actually broaden your awareness.
They expand your thinking.
They open you to more possibilities,
More connection,
More creativity.
But here's what most people miss.
Joy is not something that arrives dramatically.
It is not something you have to chase or manufacture or earn.
These positive emotions are already present in your life.
In the quiet,
Ordinary moments.
That passed by unnoticed because your attention was somewhere else.
So the art is learning to pause and savor the moments when they happen.
And here's what psychologist Fred Bryant found in his decades of research around the practice of savoring,
The deliberate act of staying with something good a little longer than feels natural.
When you consciously attend to something good.
A moment of connection.
A beautiful morning.
A conversation that left you feeling seen.
Something small that simply feels right.
Your brain encodes it more deeply.
It becomes more available to you.
More real,
More sustaining.
Hansen's research shows that staying with a positive experience for just 20 to 30 seconds is enough to begin building a new neural groove.
The difference between water flowing over a rock and water carving into it.
Repetition and attention are what create the groove.
And the groove becomes your new baseline.
This is why noticing matters so profoundly,
Not just for how you feel in this moment,
But for who you become over time.
I know this from my own experience.
For a long time,
I moved through my days focused on what needed to be done.
What wasn't finished,
What still needed attention.
The good moments were there.
I just wasn't stopping for them.
What shifted was learning to pause.
Even just for a breath.
To notice something small and let it register.
A cup of tea that tasted exactly right.
A moment when my creative work.
Something clicked.
A conversation that left me feeling less alone.
These moments are always happening.
I just wasn't giving them the attention they deserved.
And when I started to.
Something changed.
Not all at once,
But gradually.
The days began to feel fuller.
More meaningful.
More joyful.
Not because my circumstances changed,
But because my attention did.
Joy is not somewhere else.
It is here,
In the ordinary texture of your actual life,
Waiting to be noticed.
Take a moment now and bring your awareness back to your breath.
Inhale slowly.
And exhale gently.
Now I want you to cast your mind back over the past week.
Not looking for the big moments,
Not looking for the dramatic highlights,
But looking for the small ones.
The quiet ones.
The ones that felt good even briefly.
Even in the middle of something difficult.
A moment of warmth.
A moment of ease.
A moment of connection.
A moment of beauty.
A moment where something simply felt right.
That one of those moments come into your awareness now.
Don't analyze it,
Just let it be there.
Notice how it feels in your body.
To bring this moment back to your attention.
Perhaps a softening.
Perhaps a warmth.
Perhaps a quiet sense of yes,
That was good.
Stay with it for just a moment longer than feels comfortable.
That is savoring.
That is the practice.
That is how you begin to rewire your brain for joy.
Now,
I invite you to turn inward and explore this theme more deeply through journaling.
Your journal prompt today is what three moments from the past week contain joy that I didn't fully notice at the time.
For each moment,
Try to describe it in a little detail.
Where were you?
What was happening?
What made it good.
And how does it feel now to give it the attention it deserves?
You might also explore what would change in your daily life.
If you slow down enough to notice a moment of joy each day.
Allow your thoughts to flow without editing or judgment.
Simply let whatever wants to be expressed come onto the page.
It is time to gently bring your journaling to a close.
Take a slow breath in.
And a full breath out.
I'll share an affirmation.
You can repeat it silently or out loud.
Letting the words settle within you.
I slow down and notice what is good.
I slow down and notice what is good.
Joy is already present in my everyday life.
Joy is already present in my everyday life.
I give myself permission to pause and let it land.
I give myself permission to pause and let it land.
Take one more breath.
Feeling open,
Present and a little more aware.
Of what has always been there.
Thank you for giving yourself this time today.
Each time you return to this practice,
You're strengthening something real.
Your ability to notice what is good.
To stay with it long enough for it to register.
And to carry that awareness into the ordinary moments of your day.
Joy is not somewhere else.
It is here.
If today's practice resonated with you,
I'd love to invite you to go deeper.
I have a 10-day audio journaling course called Return to Joy.
A guided experience that combines science-based reflection EFT tapping,
And journaling.
To help you reconnect with what matters most and move forward with more lightness,
Clarity,
And joy.
You can find it here on Insight Timer.
And if you'd like to continue this daily practice with me.
Please follow me here on Insight Timer so you never miss a new session.
New guided practices are added regularly and I would love to have you with me.
Until then,
Notice one good thing today,
Just one.
And stay with it for 20 to 30 seconds.
Let it land,
Let it register,
Let it become a groove rather than a ripple.
That is enough to begin changing everything.
