How many times a week do you feel joy? Let me define what I mean by joy. People think that joy means you have a smile on your face so wide your cheeks hurt because you just saw two dancing Monarch butterflies in a colorful flower bed. Or you belted out a love song on the radio in your car because all the words are just like how you feel about your new person. While those states of being indicate joyous reverie, joy is much more peaceful. It is not an addictive high octane state of frantic discovery. Joy is understanding you have been blessed with circumstances that you couldn’t ever possibly in your wildest human of imaginings seen coming, and you don’t need to know the future. Joy is the actualization of the unfolding of the deliciousness of the discovery while never actually going to the place where it gets all fucked up.
We do that as humans. We eject from joy way sooner than we need to because we think there are limits. Joy can be limitless. Even if you have bad news, or a bump in the road, you can get back to joy.
Take laughing your ass off. You never see it coming and you always believe after you do, you couldn't imagine ever doing it again. The next day, you are even a little in disbelief it even transpired. You are in such gratitude for the person who had the laugh fest with you because they thought the same thing (usually something you never saw coming) was as hilariously gut splitting funny as you. Laughing your ass off is the purest form of joy. You completely surrender to a vortex of time and space where you think of literally nothing but not peeing your pants, and how hard you are crying. You love that person for taking that magical ride with you. You are in another dimension. And you never question the joy.
Joy and happiness are in the belief good stuff is around you at all times, and your job is just to not fuck it up with your hang ups, guilt, patterns, old baggage and resentments. Just be in joy. Who told you that there was a joy meter? Who informed you that joy has a limit and runs out? They are fools and they are mean and don’t have your best interest in heart. We don’t have to be serious even to have a hard conversation. What if the outcome of that challenging dialogue brings us joy? Sure there are suck city situations where someone is really being an ass and you think there is not joy in knowing this person right now. You can reframe and find joy in the fact that once you get away from them, you will be able to focus on your happiness again. People like to suck the joy out of others sometimes but if you let them, then you gave your joy away. You have to be a joy keeper. While I know that is almost impossible in hard times, the muscle you build pays off.
Here is how I know I have joy… and the truth is, some of it I have shed tears over or missed out on something or lost an opportunity. My joy is memorialized in a miracle journal with 182 entires for 2022 and already 38 for 2023. If I have a week where I didn’t write one in, I think hard because in the week, I had a miracle of some kind - and they can be small like timing of meeting someone, or a call went through a call center that you were sure would be a two hour wait. Or you intuitively knew how to ask a question or someone surprised you with an answer before you had to ask a question.
When I am in the joy that all is unfolding for me, it is because I trust in a higher spirit that will replace what is missing. We are out there in the world all trying to figure our lives out while higher spirit is trying to work it out for us. Relax, be in the joy, and let the forces in the world work for you. Instead of manipulating a circumstance to manufacture joy, smile at three strangers in line with you when the clerk at the post office can’t figure out some user error on her archaic mail screen and disappeared into the back for ages to inquire about it. We can feel joy that our iced tea tasted especially delicious today, or it didn’t rain when we wore our new leather shoes.
I definitely don’t have joy when I compare myself to others, or I think I handled a situation wrong. Here is the best part… I can be in incredible joy about a situation and then the next day start to overanalyze it and suck the joy right out of it. Now I think I need some self-help book to pull me out from underneath the big mess I created. There is no mess, just the loss of joy. Grab it back. Take it back. A client sent me a great clip today from Mel Robbins on the concept of “Let them.” If your kids don’t want to go to that event with you this week, let them. If that person you are attracted to is not interested in a commitment, let them. We waste energy trying to make people be in our happy space and joy.
It’s almost the end of Monday. If you legitimately did not feel joy today, it’s not too late. Think about three parts of your day that you just let go with the flow and what happened. Or if it was a shit storm of a day, be in joy that it’s over. If you are going to have the same shitty day tomorrow, think of one way you can pump in some joy. For me some days, it’s as simple as watching John Mayer perform or drinking really good bubbly water.
Or write about joy. What it means to you. Define it. Don’t judge it. Explore joy.
You can thank me later.