The Joy Report

​While reading through my journals recently, I found an entry from a year ago in which I wrote about my overwhelming struggle to understand man's inhumanity to man. How can we do this to ourselves? Back then, I found a parallel entry in which I wrote about how joyful my teacher, Martha Beck, was in a recent, live presentation. I was baffled, how could she be so joyful in the midst of such daily bad news? I found myself reflecting, what would it be like if my mission were to spread joy and magic? At the time, it was no more than an interesting idea. In addition to being absorbed in a negative news cycle, I had challenges in my personal life that required a level of equanimity and balance I had to pressingly strive for daily during the next nine months. Then New Year came around and I was writing to you, Sweet Audience, about finding joy in 2019. After offering that advice to you, I realized that I wanted to find joy in 2019. Finding joy became my word and mission for the year. So here I am to report to you the fruits of my daily labor and findings thus far when it comes to seeking joy.

 1.  You will be amazed at how much joy there is to be found in life. Every day is filled with many moments of joy both large and small. Joy has lots of flavors. Joy can be an exuberant emotion welling up within the body and heart, a kind of jumping up and down with delight kind of joy. But joy can also be a gentle hum of smiling sweetness or a quiet moment where one can just relax into a simple pleasure. It’s helpful to keep a daily journal / diary to catch the moments of joy that appear throughout the day. At the end of each day I sit down to record my joy moments of the day. Once I started keeping track of the joy in my life, I began to see that every day was filled with not just one but many moments of joy.


 2.  Joy is magnetic. Once you start noticing joy, you will find yourself finding more joy in your life. You will find that you become a magnet for joy. You will find that happiness spreads throughout you and your day. And sometimes for no apparent reason! One day while standing online for tea and croissant at my favorite coffee shop, I found my whole being radiating joy. Nothing was happening. I was just standing online, waiting for my drink. In that moment I felt like I was a brilliant sun in that coffee shop. Then I sat down at a table to write and had a very good writing session. It was all so simple, so humble and so quietly delightful, spurred on by seemingly nothing at all.


 3.  I am reading a book about joy as a mindfulness practice. The book is called "Awakening Joy: 10 Steps to Happiness" by James Baraz and Shoshana Alexander. It’s useful to have support for this year long commitment. The authors have been offering an “Awakening Joy” course for many years and they have much insight in cultivating joy as well as cultivating a mindfulness practice. The two go together well.


Joy is a choice. It’s there if you want it. There is a time and a place for suffering. And, there is a time and a place for joy. What’s your choice? What’s right for you right now?  

Smiling at you with Abundant Joy,
 
Janhavi

This week in the garden it is time for planting, new beginnings. On the left we have baby lettuces, parsley and chives. And on the right, a new daphne odora tucked into a hollow within the filbert trees in my fairy garden. Delight!

🌱 🌱 🌱 🌱 🌱 🌱 🌱 🌱 🌱 🌱
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I coach because I am passionate about personal growth. I believe we all inherently yearn to grow. Like the plants in my garden, we are all reaching to grow towards a greater Light. And sometimes, we need a little help because we get stuck; stuck in patterns, behaviors, beliefs.

In this mornings Compass Point, "Martha Beck said: "Stuckness is simply reluctance to take the next small step. Cut your next step in half. Then cut each half in half. Make the next step as small as you can. Then TAKE IT."

You can reach me by clicking on the "Let's Get Started" tab at the top of the page.
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Happy Equinox!
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