Delights of Joy

Joy to the World! is one of my favourite carols. If it makes us feel so fantastic when carolling, why not focus on feeling joy every single day of the year.

Joy opens our heart to recognize miracles happening all around us. When we focus on some happy, positive thought, these little synchronicities will pepper our reality with delight and affirm our purpose.

Joy offers us a handle for coping with the stresses of our daily grind. If we deliberately look for the amusing side of events, for something to make us grin, even ironically, then joy has popped in to our world.

It lightens the heaviest load and brightens the darkest moments. Joy always brings us into the present moment. It makes us present in eternal time. Joy moves energy; it lubricates stuck emotional energy and helps us move through the sluggish moments to reach spontaneous emotional flow and effervescence.

No-one can make you feel joy. It is completely your gift to yourself. You must allow yourself to feel joy, and when you give yourself this gift, life becomes a sweet delight. Because joy bubbles up from an inner place of well-being, it soothes discomfort and offers strength where we were feeling weak. Joy goes hand in hand with love. Lovejoy. Love evokes joy and joy springs from love. Lovejoy: a beautiful concept in a perfect word.

If joy does all these things, and much more, why don’t we feel joyful more often? Maybe it is because we get into a rut of complacency and forget to light the spark. Bring your focus to this present moment. If you are healthy, be glad; if you are ill, be glad you are still alive. You can always find a reason to be happy and grateful, always. Make feeling joy an imperative in your life. Chose it!

Be grateful for life, for the sky, for pets and other animals, for precious moments with friends or family, for good health, for a warm bed at night, and food on the table. Look for joy; look for moments of delight and you will find the universe responding all around you.

If you still cannot find joy in your life, sit down and shut your eyes. Smile broadly for ten seconds. Self assess for relief from your stress. That relief is joy beginning to well up from within your heart. In every quiet moment you will definitely find joy if you intend it. You create through your thoughts, so think uplifting thoughts. Re-live past joyous moments. Feel joy and freedom course their way through your veins and into your body cells for even just a few moments and joy will transform your day.

If you want to live more deeply in the delight of joy, smile. That’s all it takes to uplift your thoughts to joy. Smile in your heart and your eyes will dance. Have you ever spoken to someone whose eyes dance simply with the joy of being alive? Smile and the whole world will smile back at you – literally!

If all else fails and you still feel a bit down, run outside into the sunlight and punch the sky twenty times. Do it with a grin on your face. If someone sees you punching the sky like that, laugh out loud at the sheer absurdity of what you are doing. This is what joy is all about. You do not need a reason to be joyful. It is as spontaneous as breathing and equally delightful.