Tag: joyful life

Welcome Joy Into Your LIfe

If you’ve been following the past few posts on the gift of joy, steps to your more joyful life, and creating your joy toolbox you have been practicing at least a few of the steps mentioned in those posts. Congratulations. Your life is more joyful already, isn’t it? Continue to welcome joy into your life with some of these thoughts.

Photo and quote: you can welcome joy into your life like the older man in this photo. He is looking out across a bay rimmed with mountains, toward the ocean. "Joy doesn't have to be big and loud. You can find it in a single breath." by Lynette M. Burrows

Make Joy a Priority

Focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it.

Greg Anderson

We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy.

Joseph Campbell

Find joy in everything you choose to do. Every job, relationship, home… it’s your responsibility to love it, or change it.

Chuck Palahniuk

Perhaps most important, being in a state of joy is a learned skill,

not an innate ability. 

Donald Altman, The Joy Compass

Choose Joy

Photo of two green plants on a trunk, one with large fat leaves the other with tall spiky leaves, welcome joy into your life even small joys are joy

Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day.

Henri Nouwen

Joy is the simplest form of gratitude.

Karl Barth

Let your joy be in your journey – not in some distant goal.

Tim Cook

Joy must be developed from the inside. If we cannot find happiness within ourselves we will not be able to find happiness anywhere. 

Allan Lokos, Patience: The Art of Peaceful Living

Every single second is an opportunity to change your life, because in any moment you can change the way you feel.

Rhonda Byrne

Go find your joy. Whatever that is, go find your joy. Are you going to have a good day or are you going to have a great day?

Because it’s completely up to you.

Sandra Bullock

Fill Your Pockets with Joy

A joyful life is made up of joyful moments gracefully strung together.

Brene Brown

Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.

Nhat Hanh

Life doesn’t have to be perfect to be filled with joy.

Anonymous

To have joy in your heart, one must know how to appreciate

the small things in life.

Anonymous

Joy; the kind of happiness that doesn’t depend on what happens.

David Steindl-Rast

When you recover or discover something that nourishes your soul and brings joy, care enough about yourself to make room for it in your life.

Jean Shinoda Bolen

Welcome Joy Into Your Life

Welcome joy into your life photo of dog running toward the camera with joy and the quote "Joy is not a luxury. It is not selfish. It is as necessary as the oxygen you breath. Joy recharges you." by Lynette M Burrows

There are pockets of frustration and pain and sorrow in every life. Some struggle with depression. There are chemical and physical reasons the struggle toward joy is more difficult for some. If that’s you, please give yourself a chance, seek professional help. 

The joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives.

Russel M. Nelson

The shame of it all is that many of us don’t even know we are missing out on joy. Even if you don’t love yourself at the moment, even if you can’t see the path to joy, look for your joy.

If you can’t find joy in the path you are on and what you are working toward now, how do you expect to find joy once you get there?

Anonymous

Give yourself permission not to be perfect. Your life doesn’t have to be perfect to be joyful. Joy doesn’t have to be big and loud. It’s in the quiet moments too. It’s in a single breath. Take a breath. Welcome joy into your life. You deserve it. 

Create Your Joy Toolbox

If you read last week’s post, you are taking steps to your more joyful life. Have you been practicing giving yourself pockets of joy? Maybe life got too busy. Maybe you couldn’t think of any way to give yourself the gift of joy. Both prior posts mentioned scheduling time for joy. But if you are out of practice, your resources may be low. Take a few minutes this week and create your joy toolbox.

woman on swing silhouetted against a sunset with the quote: The essence of life is not in the great victories and grand failures, but in the simple joys. By Jonathan Lockwood Huie. Create your joy toolbox with simple joys.

What is a Joy Toolbox?

We each have a preferred method of learning. Visual learners learn best when they see pictures or statues make a spacial association with their moment of joy. Kinetic learners often learn best by doing or by associating some movement with their experience. There are also auditory and musical learners, verbal learners, logic and mathematical learners, social learners, and solitary learners. Each of these types will do best with a type of toolbox that fits their learning style.

Choose a toolbox (physical or mental). If it doesn’t work as well as you think it will, you can always change it.

Then fill your toolbox with representations of people, places, events, or things that bring you joy.

What are Joy Tools?

Joy tools are items or activities that help you recreate joy. 

Shells from a seashore and rocks from a mountain camping trip can be literal touchstones that help you relive a moment of joy.

A collage of photographs and magazine clippings may be all you need.

Perhaps a shoebox filled with a meaningful selection of DVDs or CDs will help replenish you with joy.

Tools can be notes you jotted on scrap paper or volumes written in journals.

Collect Your Tools

Do this with intention. Think about when you had that feeling of extreme gladness, delight, or exultation. Look around your home. Does your home reflect moments of joy back to you?

In case you’re having a hard time getting back in touch with your joy, here are a few suggestions:

  • Play air guitar for 5 minutes.
  • Sing in the shower.
  • Make silly faces.
  • Color in a coloring book.
  • Listen to (watch) your teenaged heart throb’s music (movies.)
  • Indulge in a favorite childhood game.
  • Pet your furry companion.
  • Walk along a river.
  • Savor your favorite scent.
  • Help someone who needs it.
  • Swing on a swing.
  • Relish a childhood favorite treat.

Visit this life hack post https://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/40-simple-ways-practice-joy-every-day.html for a list of 40 more ideas to add to your joy toolbox.

Be certain to include activities you can do to lift yourself out of doldrums or depression. 

My Toolbox

Image of a shelf with a clear ornament holding sand & sea shells, stuffed tigger, pooh, and piglet in safari clothes, an illustration of a blue bear on a triceratops and a ceramic dragon--your joy toolbox can be something like this

My toolbox is a shelf in my office. The image above shows an ornament filled with sand and tiny seashells from an island vacation, a trio of stuffed characters, a gift from a friend, and an illustration by my husband. Looking at those items takes me back to moments of joy. The shelf holds other memories, too. Sometimes I forget to take a moment for my pocket of joy, but it gets easier with practice.

Your Joy Toolbox

Giving yourself the tools to spark joy in your life will boost your sense of wellbeing and satisfaction. It also brightens the lives of those around you, particularly if you model the act for children and family. So please, take a few minutes several days this next week and create your joy toolbox. It’s a toolbox that can never be too full.