Do You Cultivate Joy or Stress?

The dictionary definition of joy is ‘a deep feeling or condition of happiness or contentment’. Sounds wonderful – I’ll have some of that! So, how often do you feel joyous? All day every day? Once a day? Once a week? Every now and again? I have a vague suspicion (I could be wrong) that it isn’t that often. After all, we’re not programmed for joy are we? We’re programmed to be stressed, exhausted, busy and tense. So, we walk round scowling rather than smiling, we worry rather than getting excited, we are more serious than frivolous. Hmm. Which state would be more fun? Which state would be easier? Which state do we work on?

Interesting eh?! We’d enjoy life so much more if we worked on the state of joy, but most of us instead work on the state of stress! You may be frowning at me right now – why would you work on being stressed?! Make no mistake about it…every time you spend time on worry, anger, criticism, negative thoughts and actions you are working on your stress. Perhaps not consciously, because if you were conscious of ‘working on your stress’, you would stop it. Here’s what we do: something upsets us or stresses us out. Then we worry at it like a dog with a bone. Then we talk about it with our friends, and every time we repeat the story (depending on the level of stress/worry/pain, anywhere between 5 times and 200 times) we relive the pain/stress/worry and charge it with a tremendous amount of energy and exercising our stress muscles so they get big and strong.

Much of the time when we’re doing this, we think we are ‘feeling better’…but there is a difference between venting – which is a release – and wallowing – which is like standing in a puddle and complaining that your feet are wet! Venting is a wonderful tool for releasing stress, but there comes a point where we are no longer feeling less stress from the venting, we are instead prolonging the stress. There are all sorts of other ways we work on the state of stress, but I’m more interested in the state of JOY! How do you cultivate joy in your life? In fact, do you cultivate joy at all?

Do you even think about joy? Or are you too busy with stress for any joy at all? 😛 Joy is one of my “3 Pillars” – the cornerstone, the foundation of my coaching program, and most of my clients really struggle with the concept of joy…because it’s simply not something they consider. It’s not part of their daily life. Joy, if experienced at all, is something fleeting, something that they have no control over, something that is experienced occasionally in an otherwise busy and productive life. Joy is something they can consider when they’ve done all their chores! For a lot of people, Joy is something they will think about when they’ve ticked of X Y and Z – once they’ve done that, they can be happy.

Well, guess what I say? Balls to that! Joy is the reason we’re alive! Joy is what life is all about! There are so many joyful moments just waiting to be experienced, and there is no need at all for postponement of joy. Imagine for a moment trudging through life, day after day after day, hoping that it will get better, as your brow furrows and your posture bends under the weight of stress. Now imagine dancing through life, enjoying every moment, laughing easily, having fun at every given opportunity. If you have children in your life, you won’t need to imagine it, you can watch them doing it! And what is the difference between that joyous child and us? It is merely where we put our attention. If you just pay a little attention to cultivating joy in your life, your life will become more joyous! It’s that simple.

And like most simple things, not always easy to do! The cultivation of joy requires you to pay attention, to notice, to walk through life with your eyes open, to take from each moment the potential of joy, to make time for the things that give you joy, to release those things that negatively affect the amount of joy you feel. It may require you to change your habits – instead of spending time on things that cause you stress, spending time on things that bring you joy. The benefit is that you get to dance through life joyously, enjoying every moment, laughing easily and often, having fun at every given opportunity! Well worth spending just a little time on, eh?

– Something to Play With –

What brings you joy? How much time do you spend on that joyful activity? Who brings you joy? Who do you love spending time with? How much time do you spend with those people? This week make time to spend on activities that bring you joy, whatever that is for you – dancing, reading, being with friends, nature, singing, writing, getting out and about. Call the people who bring you joy and arrange to spend time with them…and enJOY! Want to share your thoughts on this article? Leave a comment below.

Love

Donna.x