I also feel joy and deep gratitude when I count my blessings and realise how many wonderful people and experiences are in my life. Joy is spending time in silence, hanging out with my horses, with no agenda, no expectations, simply the felt connection of being together.
Concept of joy
In the past, joy was often more of a concept to me, another idea in my head because I was so busy. My mind was always going a mile a minute, worrying about the future and thinking about the past. I was not present enough to experience joy, even though it was staring me in the face. Like seeing the ripe figs on the tree but not taking the time to actually go and pick one and savour it because I was already off and focused on the next thing I wanted to do. Like the beautiful rosebush, where I thought, oh, how nice, but didn’t take the time to enjoy the scent of each rose.
That is not to say that there weren’t many joyful moments and wonderful experiences despite a rather stressful lifestyle. It is often when we experience contrast that we realise how much more is possible. This contrast came to me at the beginning of this year. I got some kind of bug that put everything on hold for two months. Life was very slow. My mind was very frustrated, and I got rather upset at times because I could not do anything, simply because the energy to do so was not there. All the things I planned to do during the slower time of the year could not get done.
As I am a firm believer that things happen for a reason in life, I realised that this downtime was giving me a nice taste of what life was like at a slower pace. Had this situation not lasted two months, I would have got right back into my old habits. But having had a taste of what life could be like with significantly less stress – most of which, I might add, was self-made – I rather enjoyed this new way of being. Looking back at the first half of the year, it was like my life was reset.
Feeling joy
Thanks to this reset, there is even more joy in life. Even my to-do list has taken on a different quality because I am more present with everything I do. I am no longer in a race to get things done. A big step has been to move from “optimising” everything in my life to planning activities with space, sometimes lots of space, in between. This has allowed me to be truly present with whatever I am doing, both in my personal and professional life.
Today, I felt the joy of putting my clothes on the clothesline to dry in the sun. I also felt the joy of taking these sun-soaked items off the clothesline again. It was a totally different experience from getting my clothes out of the tumble dryer. I took in the freshness and feeling of each item as I took it off the clothesline. Part of the joy came from doing the task manually. I was more connected to what I was doing, as all my senses were involved.
Joy of missing out
A contributor to my stress level in the past was the feeling that I needed to participate everywhere, to accept every invitation or to do things because I felt I had to, although my heart clearly said no. I often overrode my inner guidance because of the “fear of missing out”.
Have you ever noticed how much advertising is based on the “fear of missing out”? Where does joy fit into such a world? Offers are presented in such a way that, if you don’t do this, then xyz will happen to you. The subliminal message is always suggesting that something is lacking in your life, and if you just did this one thing, subscribed to this social media channel or bought this product, then your life would be good. The advertising is only successful because so many people are insecure about who they are and fearful of the future. I know because that was me a few years ago.
People who know their intrinsic self-worth and values experience just the opposite, and that is the joy of missing out! These people place more importance on how they feel about something than on what others think about them. They are happy with who they are and do not have an emptiness inside them that needs to be filled with meaningless things and experiences from the outside world. True happiness and joy lie within and cannot be bought. I believe one needs to do some degree of inner work to come to a place where one can again experience the joy of living.
The joy of living is a choice
It’s usually through painful experiences, either on a physical or emotional level, that we are guided to make a new choice in life. We can fool ourselves quite well with the stories we tell ourselves. However, our body always keeps score and speaks the truth. It is how our heart and soul let us know that we got off track somewhere along the way. The joy of living comes about when our actions are aligned with how we feel in our heart.
