Finding Joy

This month’s theme at SWC is “Happiness and Joy.”

Today we are looking at finding joy.

Joy is a feeling you have in the moment. What if our pursuit of happiness is actually getting in the way of joy?

Author Ingrid Fetell Lee says that:

“We associate happiness with big milestones in life; we associate it with getting married or buying a house or getting a promotion. We often postpone joy while we’re pursuing happiness.

When we pursue happiness, it takes us away from joy. We don’t spend time with our family or friends because we’re working hard to get that promotion. We don’t spend time or money on our hobbies and the little things in life that bring us joy because we’re trying to buy that house.

What we often find is that when we get to that milestone, there’s always something new we want. That big idea of happiness is very elusive.

But when we focus on joy, there are many little things that happen that actually make happiness more attainable. Joy connects us to other people; joy makes us more emotionally resilient over time; joy improves our health; joy makes us more productive at work.

So there are all these ways in which joy actually increases our happiness, but we overlook it. When we focus on joy, happiness finds us.”

Fetell Lee identifies three things that may help us experience more joy:

•Awareness - Identify what brings you joy

•Time and Space - Put joy into your day

•Permission - Allow yourself to experience joy

Find out more here:

https://goop.com/wellness/mindfulness/how-to-rediscover-joy/

Take some time this week to experiment with the tips in the article and see if your joy increases!