Pockets of Joy
A segment of the weekly newsletter is a weekly theme and this blog post is an enhancement to that section. Each weekly theme is an invitation and encouragement meant to help the reader better connect to themselves. Please note that the selected themes can be reflected upon at any time and are not limited to the week the themes are shared and published.
Theme: Pockets of Joy
As a noun, Merriam-Webster defines Joy as “a state of happiness or felicity” and “a source or cause of delight.” As a verb, the definition of Joy is “to experience great pleasure or delight.” This week’s theme is Pockets of Joy and is all about exploring the ways joy shows up in your life and how you experience joy itself.
Joy packs quite a punch according to the definitions above: Joy can be a state, a source, and an experience. Even so, joy is not a constant state, source, or experience. The challenge this week will be to become curious about the ways in which you can find more joy in your every day life. In other words, look for those pockets in time, interactions, and experiences where you can plants the seeds for joy. It’s not always the big emotions or gestures that matter; sometimes it is the small moments that have the biggest meaning.
Practices for Reflection
Start by taking a five deep breaths to ground yourself. Then, reflect on any or all of the following questions:
What does “joy” mean to you?
Who or what brings you joy?
When was the last time you were joyful or experienced joy?
How can you cultivate more joy in your life?
Where can you sprinkle “pockets of joy” in your everyday routines?
Personal Reflection
During a recent meditation, as I tried to focus on sensations in my body and on my breath, I couldn’t stop smiling because the feeling of joy was so overpowering. I have no clue where the feeling came from, but the feeling was there and it was demanding my attention. I reminded myself that my body picks up more information than my mind can process and maybe the quieting down for meditation allowed my mind to finally pick up what my body had been trying to communicate with me. What struck me about the randomness of the joy was how easily it seemed I could experience joy. The joy felt so good that I wondered what was stopping me from feeling joy more often (spoiler: it’s overthinking and worrying). In that moment I decided that the feeling of the day would be joy and that I would challenge myself to tap into that feeling as often as possible. Any time my mind wandered (aka overthinking) or started getting ahead of the day (aka worrying), I paused to take a breath and to try to “catch” the feeling of joy. I created a Pocket of Joy for myself.
It’s not always easy to tap into those good-feeling feelings and it’s naïve to think that those same good-feeling feelings are a long-lasting or permanent state, but we do have the power to create opportunities for experiencing those good-feeling feelings. And when I write “opportunities” I mean using what you got and filling it with what you want, whether it’s experiencing the good-feeling feeling for a breath or experiencing it for an hour. Time will keep on moving forward; the question is always “How do we want to spend it?” I’m not sure about you, but I want to spend as much time as possible feeling the good feelings and being in awe of this one wonderful life of mine.
