Feel the joy! xo
There’s something that I’ve been using in my own life as well as with clients for the last year or so, that has been offering all of us huge shifts and success in areas of life that before may have felt like life long struggles and challenges – with body issues, relationships and even money. 😮
This is what I’m calling the Joy Principle, or JP.
Before I introduce the JP, I feel it’s important to say a bit about where I was before JP. In the years before consciously applying the JP, things were pretty bad to pretty good.
Meaning that I had times in my life that felt like rock bottom (that’s another story), and as I pulled myself out of there, I started to have experiences and times that were pretty good.
Pretty good is better than pretty bad, but I still felt like things were hard, and not truly fulfilling.
For example:
- I believed that I would always be physically sensitive and fragile because of all the years of destructive habits – starving and binging, punishing exercise when I was already depleted, subsisting off of fat-free cookies, ice cream, candy, etc.
- I believed that I was “bad” at intimate relationships because I always felt challenged by communicating my truth and feelings in a tactful way (or any way for that matter).
- I believed that I would always have to struggle financially, which led me to still feel lack even when I was enjoying a “pretty good” income.
- I believed that I would have to work really hard, and do things on my own . . .
You get the idea.
These just felt like “how things were going to be”, and consequently, I related to all areas of my life with a lid clamped down on possibility, while continuing to wonder why my hard work wasn’t paying off . . . why I couldn’t just get the relationship thing right … and continuing to feel overprotective about my health and well-being.
And then I started to play with the Joy Principle.
It was kind of a gradual process that I almost didn’t notice at first.And honestly, it wasn’t until the earlier part of this year, that I said to myself (and others) with humble and ecstatic authenticity “My life is AMAZING! I mean, REALLY amazing!”
The best part was/is, that I not only said this, but FELT it deeply in every part of my being for the first time ever!
I had officially embodied the JP.
Here’s what’s interesting about this. When I really began to “feel” the JP, nothing dramatically had changed externally. Meaning, I hadn’t made a million dollars or become the bionic woman or moved into my dream home . . . etc.
Things externally were starting to shift in response to my newly anchored joy, but that joy, or sense of fulfillment, did not come from the outside.
It came from my shift inside.
Within the context of this blog post, I really can’t promise that you’ll wake up tomorrow magically & fully engaged in your personal joy zone, but I do intend to share some tips that I believe will begin getting you closer to your own place of Joy and fulfillment.
This place is what many spiritual masters (and mistresses) call “Inner Peace”
5 Sacred Steps to Your Joy Ride
- Balancing your body and health is essential . .. BUT not from a place of obligation, “should” or “supposed to”. Nope. Start engaging in gorgeous self care because you love it, and it makes you feel good and alive. When your body is healthy and functioning with energy, your ability to attract joy goes WAY up. And when you begin to eat beautiful, nourishing foods and move in a way that you love to move, you will actually keep doing it because you WANT to.
- Get clear about what you really want. Journal, meditate, pray, work with a mentor, keep asking yourself . . . whatever it takes. Ask yourself what you want in life and WHY. Going along with somebody else’s desires, or continuing to exist in the land of “I don’t know” will keep your joy levels in a very low and un-fulfilling place. This leads to resentment, negative thoughts and self sabotage of what you know would be “good for you”.
- Stop (or seriously minimize) doing things, saying things, thinking things, being around others who don’t make you feel good. Seriously! I know this sounds drastic, but it is absolutely possible to do in a graceful and organic manner. How? That’s what #4 is all about . .. And when eliminating maybe doesn’t feel possible or practical, applying the JP is about shifting the way you relate to that person, activity, occurrence, etc.
- Connect with your Joy intention daily, multiple times a day. Write a joy manifesto, create a Love List, design personal mantras like “I only do/eat/think what feels good” . . . and begin to swim in the sea of Joy, breathing in little joy bubbles as you doggie paddle. J I had a client who has been struggling with her weight for most of her life, and yet in many ways she was “doing what she was supposed to be doing”. Eating what she believed to be healthy and going to the gym regularly . . . but she was NOT enjoying any of it. To her these activities were a necessary evil. Ouch! When I asked her why she exercised, she said to lose weight. That is not applying the Joy Principle, and it was keeping her stuck AND unhappy. By shifting her intention to one that felt good, everything started to shift.
- Try it! Yes, just give these ideas a try. Be gentle, but do take action. It is a practice, not a perfect. And as I mentioned, my own breakthrough sort of snuck up on me.
Life is short, things happen, disasters occur, seasons change . . . but when you can access your joy, circumstances no longer take you down. You still feel emotion, but don’t get stuck in and wallow in the mud. You can embrace the mud as the place required for the lotus flower of your life and dreams to bloom and grow.
You enjoy the nectar of life because you’ve related differently to the bitterness. Honoring it as the contrast you required to taste the sweetness.
With Joy xox Ana
What other ways do you see supporting your Joy Ride?
Leave a comment below. 🙂
