The Practice of Joy

When was the last time you noticed feeling joy – real joy? When you connect to joy, you connect to the truth of who you are. Joy brings meaning. It brings health. And it brings life.

Let me start by defining what I mean. First, as a comparison, happiness is an emotional state – and a rather fickle one at that. Something “good” happens around you, you’re happy. Something that you deem as “bad” happens, and you’re unhappy. Yes, we work to change our point of view to minimize the unhappy states, but it does seem to rise and fall as the tides. As J.S. Mill said, “Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.”

Joy, on the other hand, I see as a spring that rises, unbidden, from the depths of our being. There’s nothing rational about it; we each have our own joy triggers. And it is possible to be in an unhappy state and yet experience joy at the same time if we allow our awareness to be open to it. It is what brings real depth and vibrancy to our lives.

Now, because I focus on increasing energy for women, I want to take it a step further. Here’s a radical thought: what if you feeling energetic or fatigued is directly related to your experience of joy? Some say they have no joy in life because they’re exhausted; I say the exhaustion has set in, in large part, because we’ve lost touch with our joy. And then it becomes a terrible downward spiral.

So how do we get back in touch with joy?
1. First we need to make the decision that we are going to be open to it. Too often we shut ourselves down, rejecting it and other forms of beauty and goodness around us. Do we fear enjoying ourselves too much and then having to bear a potential loss? Have we experienced criticism during a time of joy and so feel the need to safeguard ourselves from further judgment? Do we think we don’t deserve it?

Joyful existence came naturally to us all at one point early in our lives. Just because we have somehow lost it does not mean it must remain lost. Reclaiming our ability to experience joy brings us back to centre, to our truth. What do you think the world would be like if each of us were focused on experiencing joy? It not only benefits ourselves, but it benefits everyone around us as well.

2. Next, in order to reconnect with it, we need to start being aware of what it is that brings each of us joy. Be curious when you go through your day – pay attention to what you’re doing or where you are when the feeling of joy, of deep satisfaction, of delight, wells up inside you.
Here are some tips to help in your search:

YOUR SENSES
Martha Beck in her book The Joy Diet suggests going through each of your five senses and identifying the things that evoke a spontaneous smile.
• Does the sight of anything in particular make you feel so good, suddenly, that it cuts through whatever else may be going on?
• Is there a sound that stirs your soul?
• Is there a smell that just brings a smile to your face?
• Does the taste of anything in particular feel deeply satisfying to you? (Be especially conscious of this one, that it is a true and deep smile-evoking feeling and not just a psychological or emotional craving that provides a short-term fix but leaves you feeling worse later on.)
• Is there something that you just adore the feel of?

I’ll give you a few examples of things I’ve discovered from my own life so you can see what this looks like. Being up in the mountains and hearing the clang of cow bells gives me a feeling of utter bliss. Seeing (and smelling) the beauty of a mass of colourful flowers gives me the sensation of being nourished like nothing else does (and curiously, white flowers do not have the same effect for me). Seeing goats, even pictures of goats, makes me grin like a fool – I know, I know, they’re weird critters and they smell awful, but for some crazy reason goats bring me joy…
Every single person will come up with a completely different list. What’s yours?

YOUR ACTIONS
Another way you can reconnect to joy is by doing something that transports you to a place of deep contentment in the moment. It may be something that’s effortlessly fun – for example, I’ve just recently discovered (or re-discovered) what many children already know: sending bubbles flying across the yard is a joyful endeavor! Or it may require focus. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in his book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, talks about the joy that can be discovered when we immerse ourselves in something with our full concentration.

3. Once you have an idea of at least a couple of things that bring you joy, the next step is to actively cultivate it. Here we set up the conditions for joy to exist in our lives and work its magic. If there are certain objects that bring you joy, keep them in your surroundings so that they can bring you fulfillment every single day. Is there an activity that puts you in that state of flow? Make time for it regularly. Keep the company of people who bring you delight. Visit the places that speak to your soul.

It’s those glimmers of joy on a regular basis that bring the exquisite pleasure of the present moment. Then one moment turns to two, and then the deep satisfaction that it brings can transport your life to one of meaning and vitality – if you let it.

And if we all did that? Oh, what a world it would be.