Welcome friend.
Let's spend a little time together reflecting on joy,
Our worthiness of it.
And inviting it in.
If you'd like to listen to this meditative reflection with your eyes closed,
You're always welcome to.
Or if you'd prefer to take this one outside or on a walk,
Feel free.
Just be sure you're still able to maintain your present moment awareness with yourself.
There are many of us who spend time wondering how to be happy.
How can we make our lives happier each day?
How can we feel happy more often?
Why don't we feel happy all the time?
The thing about happiness is that it's an emotion.
A temporary feeling that is often our reaction to something outside of us.
But joy?
This is a deeper,
More enduring state.
That is cultivated from within.
Joy is something we can nurture inside of ourselves and consciously invite to grow in our lives.
We don't have to wait for something to happen outside of us.
Or wait for the feeling to spontaneously arise on a whim to experience joy.
Now,
You might be thinking,
Well,
That's great,
Thanks for the definitions,
But call it joy or happiness,
How do I get either of them more often?
Rather than focusing on a random reaction to success,
A social event we're looking forward to,
Or receiving some kind of reward to experience happiness We are able to invite in the deliberate practice of joy anytime.
This attitude towards life that is a choice to see things through a different lens.
It's an active drawing in of the things that light us up.
The moments that nourish us to our core.
When we're inviting joy,
We aren't forcing ourselves to put on a happy face when life sucks,
Or throwing toxic positivity around like confetti.
We are simply recognizing that many moments of our lives can be even just a little more joyful than we are allowing them to be right now.
For example.
I recently had a really rough day.
I'm talking tears and making no sense and trying to explain what was really bothering me.
My wonderful husband listened with patience.
I unearthed some things that I'd like to bring more awareness to on a daily basis.
And then after about an hour of this,
We hugged.
But instead of just leaving it there.
Being done in that moment.
I asked him.
Can we shake it off?
He looked at me and smiled.
Pulled up a song on his phone and we danced like silly little kids with our puppy Indy at 10 a.
M.
On a Tuesday in our living room.
I didn't simply cover up my emotions with a happy smile.
After I had taken the time to move through the deepest parts of the challenge I was facing.
I consciously took an extra moment and dug a little deeper to see if there was something there that I could tap into.
To help guide me back to that state of joy that I'm learning to bring into my life more often.
Now,
Did dancing fix everything going wrong in my life right now?
Not even close.
But inviting in what was a moment of joy for myself did help to bring me back to my baseline of well-being that I know is there.
Even on the tough days.
Even when I can't feel it as easily.
Sometimes,
We need to remind ourselves that we are always worthy of joy.
We won't experience the emotion of happiness all the time.
But just by being human.
Just by showing up for the day and doing our best.
We are always worthy of moving towards our joy.
Even on the hard days.
Especially on those days or periods of time where it feels like it's covered up by everything else.
Some days it might be harder than others to dig deep and remember that it's there.
That's okay.
But it's always inviting us in.
Joy is always asking us to return to it.
To return to the well of worthiness.
And remember.
That we deserve to come back to our joy.
No requirements or prerequisites necessary.
You are human,
So you are worthy.
Joy can be returned to in the subtlest of ways.
And it can be added into a conscious shift of what we're focusing on.
Just like what I shared about my experience.
Even for a small space of time.
Practicing experiencing tiny joys every single day helps us to build that underlying reservoir of our joy foundation.
So even on the days when you don't feel like you need extra joy.
Consciously tap into something that does bring you joy.
This helps to create a memory in your body.
A neural pathway in the brain.
Remembering in your heart that joy gets to be there.
And that it can be easier to return to when it's experienced more often,
Even in these tiny ways.
Everyone's expression will look different.
And some days we need a different kind of joy.
You get to check in with what would feel most helpful for you to tap into.
To experience some joy right now.
Maybe you place yourself in an environment that helps you see beauty and experience awe.
You might do something creative like throwing paint onto a canvas or stringing necklaces with snarky phrases that make you laugh.
Or put pen to paper.
Ask yourself what joy means to you and see what arises.
Maybe you think of a time when you were with one of your nearest and dearest,
And you laughed so hard that you cried.
Who knows?
The cool thing is that it's up to you.
Your joy is brilliantly unique to you.
Those actions,
Those memories.
Those moments of placing ourselves in an environment where joy can arise more easily Let those help to open up the door within us to access that space.
And then.
.
.
All we have to do is choose to walk through that door more often.
On days when I have a hard time accessing my joy.
I simply watch my dog's face when I throw the frisbee for her.
And I can't help but smile watching how elated she is to just be running in the yard with the breeze in her fur.
Her joy opens that door to my own joy as well.
You can access your joy in countless ways.
Let's take a moment to say these phrases to ourselves.
I am always allowed to invite myself back to joy.
Joy is a part of me that will never cease to exist.
Even in life's most challenging times,
And it might be covered up for a while.
Joy is woven into the fabric of my humanness.
My joy today is unique to who I am right now.
I deserve joy.
I am worthy of joy.
And I choose to let myself access my joy more often.
Take a deep breath in.
And exhale.
I invite you to take time today,
Even if it's just for a few minutes,
To open up the door to your joy again.
And then do it again tomorrow.
And again the next day.
And the next.
You are worthy of joy.
So dedicate a little time in your life to move closer to it.
Act deserving of it.
And let yourself experience it in the biggest or tiniest of ways.
Thank you for sharing this reflection space with me today.
I can't wait to share another practice with you again soon.
I hope that you can find some joy in your day.
