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Jumpstart your Joy

Are you happy? Truly happy? Honestly? Most people when asked will say, “Yes, I am, but….” and they will tell you about the “but”.  And right there they leave their happiness behind and walk into some form of discontent. It is rare to find a person that is truly happy with their lot, as it is. There is always something…more. Something to take the

shine off the joy of that moment. That is human nature. To strive, to improve, to perfect, to be just a little or a lot more. Sometimes though it is nice to just…stop….and enjoy the moment, to be still in that moment of joy. Joy can come in many ways.

When each of my children were born I would sit holding them and just enjoy watching them sleep, in total awe at the miracle of life and the perfection of a tiny human being’s ability to evoke such a strong sense of pure love. Their perfect little features and the gentle way they’d breathe. The joy too, that I was part of that human being’s creation. When each of them started playschool, the joy of watching my child move up a stage with confidence that they were a “big boy” or “big girl” and were joining the other “big boys and girls”. I’m lucky in that I didn’t see this as a sad or bad occasion, it was a milestone and it was monumental for them and the more positive the experience, the better. Or even the joy at parts of my own childhood. The time we all (five of us) had bad colds during a snowy patch in winter and couldn’t go outside to play, as small children and my father and his assistant took the time to make a snowman out the back garden and the five of us leant noses up against the window watching and steaming up the window. The joy of anticipation of the snowman and the wonder at how our breaths blocked off our view. Or another occasion when it was a really hot summer’s day and we were excused our dancing class, my sister and I, and our parents took us all to the beach for the afternoon and the joy of running down the

beach to the water’s edge and dodging the waves as they fell against the sand. The pure bliss of finding crabs in the rock-pools and catching one in a net to transfer into the bucket we’d taken with us.

When we look back, it is easy to remember all the joyous moments, the freedoms of the carefree days of childhood when worries and plans and finances and careers were something that didn’t even enter our heads. Then we hit teenage-hood and suddenly life was a confusing mass of hormones and sometimes self-consciousness. Adults then told us we had to “grow up” plan for our future, but still didn’t allow us the freedoms that we thought we deserved with this new stage in life. Our joy at life got caught up in the swirl of growing up, becoming adults. Within a few years we are full of worries and exams, then adulthood, college, careers, marriage, parenthood. It’s not that we don’t experience joy, it’s that we temper it with all the other things that come into our daily lives so that we often forget to notice the pure joy of a given moment and cherish it for what it is…..nature in whatever form….at it’s best.

So how do we jumpstart our joy in these times, when many people have huge financial or career worries, that add stress to relationships already overloaded with stress? It always comes down to the four simple questions that probe so deeply: How will I cope if I stay positive, how will I cope if I don’t stay positive, I won’t I cope if I stay positive, how won’t I cope if I don’t stay positive? By staying positive and looking for the joy in life’s simple childish type pleasures even in tough times we are jump-starting the small joy inside us. It can build up to a feeling of gratitude for many things. Even though it can be hard to appreciate the joys in life when job-security is no longer there or financial burdens are heavy, by appreciating the simple things we acknowledge that life is not only about the burdens we carry,

but the other things, like our child’s laughter, or their joy on their faces when they see us after school. Or that special look your partner gives you that says: “I love you, I think you’re wonderful” The pat on the back a pal gives you, or your parents give you after a visit. They are simple, but they all add up. Each day, before we get out of bed, if we stop and remember what it was like as a carefree child, just for three minutes and see the things we saw with child-like eyes, and hear our child-like voice and those of our siblings and friends, and smell those smells of childhood, feel the clothes we wore against our skin and drown ourselves in the joy of that time, and let that feeling of joy wash it’s way right through our body, until every cell is bathed in it. Then get up with a smile and face the day.