Tag: life

more journey with joy…

When life throws up a bunch of hurdles and challenges, I have to keep reminding myself that I can connect with joy even if I don’t feel happy about what’s going on or how I’m feeling otherwise.

For me, connecting with joy sometimes means that I have to really, really look for those moments, those little pockets, those little somethings, that bring me joy.

Sometimes it means being very deliberate, very intentional. I have to watch for them, so that I can notice them when they happen, and capture them to bring them into my heart and my day.

Sometimes it means I have to actively do something to connect with joy. To make a deliberate choice and decision to make that connection… Even something simple like pulling up a favorite song to listen to. Or spending a few minutes gazing at a beautiful sky. Or giving our cat some scritches and cuddles.

Sometimes we have to deliberately notice. Or consciously choose.

And I’ve found it’s sort of like a muscle – the more I work this joy muscle, the more often I realize I’m feeling joy.

Even when things are difficult. And even if I’m not exactly happy.

I created this art journaling JOY page two or three years ago. It’s nothing fancy, but if you’d like it as a reminder of JOY, it’s yours if you’d like to have it. Just click below to access the downloadable and printable pdf of the image – as with all the printables here, it’s free.

 

♥

 

journey with joy – again…

Several years ago, I did a blog challenge for myself to journey with joy.

It was in the midst of an incredibly difficult year and I was doing my best to get through each day. More than ever before, I came to understand the importance of being connected to JOY (which isn’t the same as being happy). I decided to live into being connected with joy by blogging about it. I thought having such a conscious action focused on JOY would be helpful for me.

I called it my journey with joy.

My challenge to myself back then, in August 2013, was to blog daily for a month about JOY, even if it was only posting a photo that brought me joy.  I started off consistently (when I moved from my former online home to this current blog, I only brought one of those August ’13 posts over) but I ended up not blogging every day, mostly due to my father’s declining health and then death later that month.

But even without blogging every day, the challenge was helpful for me with dealing with all that was happening during that time. And consciously doing my best to stay connected with joy has been helpful for me in the often-difficult years since then.

So I’ve decided to blog my journey with joy again.

I’m not planning to blog daily, though.

And even when I do blog, not every post will be about JOY.

But from now through the end of this year, JOY is going to be a sort of theme here.

My hope is that it will help me in my own journey to stay connected with joy (which, again, is not the same as being happy).

And I’m also hoping it might help you too… maybe by offering a bit of hope, a reminder that you’re not alone, a gentle nudge to keep your eyes open for whatever brings you joy, something (even a moment) that’s uplifting to your day.

May our journeys with joy help us travel this road of life.

♥

 

laughter yoga, anxiety, lightness…

As part of my healing journey, I’ve started taking time each day for some laughter yoga.

Laughter yoga is something I’ve thought of doing for years because I’ve long known the benefits of laughter when it comes to physical and emotional health. But I procrastinated and put it on the back burner, thinking to myself “oh yes, I need to look that up on youtube” whenever I happened to think of it at all.

But thanks to the brain retraining and neural rewiring I’ve been deeply diving into lately (because of my physical healing journey, as well as to help with my lifelong anxiety), laughter yoga came back into my awareness several times over the course of a few days. And my procrastination about it finally came to an end.

What is laughter yoga?

Well, this is the definition according to wikipedia: Laughter yoga (Hasyayoga) is a practice involving prolonged voluntary laughter. This type of yoga is based on the belief that voluntary laughter provides the same physiological and psychological benefits as spontaneous laughter. It is done in groups, with eye contact, jokes and playfulness between participants. Forced laughter often turns into real and contagious laughter.

I haven’t been doing it with a group (I’m not aware of any groups in my area for laughter yoga) but youtube has been filling in just fine.

And the laughter changes things… Physically. Emotionally. Mentally. After even a few minutes of laughter yoga, I notice a decrease in anxiety and a new level of lightness to my mood. I’ve also noticed that the benefits stay with me long after I stop the laughter yoga session. The good-feeling energy-shifting of the laughing spills over into the rest of my day.

I’m doing lots of other things to decrease anxiety, engage with joy, and help cope with physical symptoms. Laughter yoga is only one tool of many in my toolkit.

But so far it’s proving to be a very helpful tool.

There are many laughter yoga videos on youtube – way more than I’ve watched. Here’s one I’ve used:

It can feel a bit strange at first, it can feel not-really-funny at first, but the laughter becomes contagious. Before long, I’m laughing just because.

It’s those mirror neurons firing.

And the results are good stuff.

♥