Joy is a heightened momentary blissful state.
It may be best described as great pleasure,
Intense beauty,
Thrill,
Laughter,
Warmth,
Presence,
Excitement,
Exhilaration,
Appreciation,
And love.
Different from happiness,
Joy is fleeting and also intense.
Joy is a state of your heart exploding with emotion.
Happiness as a consistent flow of positive affect is an underlying state of being that weathers a multitude of situations and life events,
And is,
I believe,
Our natural inherent state.
Think of happiness as a baseline.
Happiness as an inner dwelling state is easily present as long as we refrain from moving ourselves out of this state.
Moments of joy are curated based on our ability,
Our willingness to experience excitement,
Gratitude,
To interpret a situation as immensely gratifying,
And to feel the effects of unconditional kindness and love that we give and receive.
Joy is the heartfelt witnessing of what is deeply meaningful and important.
All of these involve the allowing of our heart to be open,
To witness,
To experience what moves us so deliberately into joy.
I encouraged my client Sarah to give herself permission to experience unleashed joy,
To revel in the simplest of things,
To acknowledge what is beautiful,
Sacred,
And important to her,
And to indulge in this,
Allowing herself to feel joy,
To not turn away from it,
To let it be what she embraces and holds,
Even for a time.
It's possible that we don't allow ourselves to be overtaken by joy,
To burst out into an uncontrollable belly laugh,
Or to giggle incessantly for a time,
To witness something so beautiful and profoundly moving that we cannot help but feel joy expressed so expansively in our heart and throughout our being.
In other moments,
Joy overtakes us,
The result being tears running down our face as the expression of joy felt fully.
What if we allowed ourselves to bask in the fullness of life's every experience,
To open our heart completely,
To keep it open,
To savor each moment in order to witness the abundance of joy,
And to curate it intentionally?
Life would reveal more joy for us,
All because our requirements of what allows us to feel joy would be less dependent on the having of things,
Or situations being what we want them to be,
And more on the appreciation of what is.
The experience of curating unleashed joy requires an attitude of allowing.
It is important that you not only allow yourself to feel innate happiness more readily,
But that you intentionally go in search of joy.
Most easily you do this by appreciating,
By holding gratitude and thanks for what is already a part of your life,
And as you continue to be attentive to the beauty and kindness that exists and to all of the moments that curate joy so perfectly.
If you think of happiness as an innate state of being,
Then joy becomes the moments when you allow the beauty and precious nature of life to overwhelm you,
To intoxicate you,
To remind you of your incredible potential for bliss.
We all love experiencing joy,
Even if it is fleeting.
Joy reminds us that we can feel the intensity of what is heightened as more than happiness,
Largely by our desire,
Our attention,
Our deep appreciation of so much.
We all have the ability to curate unleashed joy ever so easily.
Perhaps after hearing this,
You will go in search of joy.
You will set out to curate joy by being far more appreciative of the simple things in life,
Far more attentive to your thoughts and actions,
And of course,
How you want to feel,
Knowing that how you feel begins with what you think about.
You may also go in search of what you can do to spread kindness and love eagerly,
To be playful and engage your inner child,
To allow yourself to simply be far more of the time in present moment awareness,
Open to the joy that will overtake you and being willing to surrender to it.
Set joy into your heart.
Allow yourself to feel its intensity,
For this is what reminds you of how life is so beautiful,
So precious,
That it is filled with goodness,
And that you may experience moments of bliss now and often.
Thank you so much for listening.
This is Dorothy Rotissini.
Namaste.
