We all want to feel joy. However, do you feel that you have to go on a diet, lose weight, wear the right clothes, or become worthy before you can feel joyful? How can you be happy if you are overweight, stuck, lonely, feeling depressed or stressed? If you are lacking joy, take heart! You can learn to reverse the habits and behaviors that are sabotaging your joy.
Where Does Joy Come From?
Before you can get more joy, it helps to know what joy is. Joy is not simply a deeper form of happiness, nor is it the opposite of sadness. In fact, joy is not an emotion at all. Instead, many religious and spiritual teachings tell us that joy is an inner quality. The belief is that at the core of each person lies calm radiant joy. In other words, everyone is born inherently joyful. However, through our life experiences, we cover up and conceal our joy with layers of worry, fear, and doubt. Through habit, we teach ourselves to think thoughts that support difficult feelings instead of thinking thoughts that encourage and allow joy.
If indeed at the core of our being lies joy itself, then the process of experiencing joy can be viewed in a hopeful light. There is no event, no person, no anything outside of you that can grant you this feeling. There is nothing you have to prove first before you can be worthy of feeling joy. Joy is not something you must earn. You don't have to be thin enough, rich enough, good enough, nice enough, or even pretty enough to have this feeling of joy.
However, you can't just sit around and hope that joy will magically appear. Increasing your level of joy requires decision and action. First, you have to decide you want to feel more joy, and then you have to take deliberate actions that lead to your expanding joy.
You are waiting until you lose weight before you can feel better?
Logically, it would seem that we would welcome any opportunity to feel joy and feel good about ourselves. However, this is often not the case. We have become heavily invested in feeling bad about ourselves. We may say we want to feel joy, but we'll actually do anything we can to avoid it. We allow ourselves to tolerate pain and discomfort. We cling to worries. We dwell on unhappy thoughts. In essence, we have become experts at postponing joy. Read the following examples and notice if you actively participate one or more of these joy stoppers:
o Waiting until losing weight before dressing comfortably and attractively.
o Thinking the joy will come once you achieve the goal.
o Self-criticizing each step of the goal not accomplished perfectly.
o Failing to acknowledge personal effort or success.
o Eating wonderful meals only when in the company of others.
o Cooking for others, but not yourself.
o Sneaking certain foods when you are alone.
o Tolerating poor treatment from others.
o Avoiding self-caring and self-nurturing activities.
o Isolating because you have decided you are not worthy of being with other people in your current state.
o Not achieving your goals.
What are some of the ways you hold yourself back from feeling joy:
1. ______________________________________
2. ______________________________________
3. ______________________________________
4. ______________________________________
5. ______________________________________
How To Increase Your Joy
If you want to increase your level of joy, decide to start now. You do not have to wait until you lose weight, end emotional or stress eating, or have your life perfectly aligned. Even if you are depressed, there are many small steps that you can take that will make a dramatic difference in the amount of joy you feel. Follow these steps and simple exercises and take your joy into your own hands.
1. Choose Joy
How can you increase your level of joy? A starting point to allow a deeper connection to joy is to make a conscious decision that you are tired of working on your life and working on your problems. Decide you want to experience joy right now. Then, get busy making simple choices that allow you to feel good about yourself today. For example:
o Appreciate the love and beauty already in your life.
o Value your own efforts.
o Instead of focusing on problems, envision solutions.
o Practice self-supportive thoughts.
o Lighten up and don't take yourself so seriously.
o Schedule time every day for relaxation.
o Learn to breathe consciously and deeply.
Yes, all of this requires effort, but it is possible. Joy is not something someone else can do for you or give to you. Only you can make the choice to allow joy to fill your life.
2. Replace your "shoulds" with "I choose"
I should be eating healthy. I should not eat that high calorie food. I should have lost more weight by now. I should start exercising. Have you fallen into the habit of trying to motivate your weight loss efforts with "should" statements? If so, realize that "should" statements generate unnecessary emotional turmoil. They tend to make you feel pressured, resentful, and rebellious. As a result, you will respond with resistance and defiance, and follow the urge to do just the opposite. Should statements pull you away from your center, and away from the joy of taking care of your self. Every time you hear yourself saying, "I should . . .", replace your statement with a conscious choice and say "I choose to . . ." or, "I choose not to . . ." Be responsible to yourself for your choices and you'll feel a ton better.
3. Learn to Enjoy Your Own Company!
The greatest gift you can give to yourself is the acceptance of your experiences. Sitting with emotions as you would sit with a good friend, you learn the language of your body first-hand. You teach yourself that you are not a victim, and that you do have the inner resources to face challenges. While you would prefer not to have difficult life experiences, you can learn there is meaning in the deepest sorrows. Difficult experiences and emotions can be turning points altering your perspective on life, offering healing and personal growth.
4. Smile When You Are Successful
Each time you do something that is symbolic of a small victory smile! Do you remember the saying, "Frown and you frown alone, but smile and the whole world smiles with you"? Smiling can put you at ease and even cheer you up. Do you ever notice that when someone smiles at you, you feel better? Smiling creates a feeling of success and a sense of joy. So, the next time you have a success, add a smile.
5. Practice Optimism
Optimism feels more joyful! If you are not currently an optimistic person, don't worry - optimism can be learned. You can choose how you think despite all the little setbacks, small adversities, disappointments, frustrations, and letdowns in your everyday experiences. Here are several optimistic thoughts to practice:
o Things didn't go well today, but there's a lot to be learned from this experience.
o Have hope that everything is going to work out in the future.
o Understand there is a future.
o Tell yourself you will get through this emotion, situation, or experience.
o Be a friend to yourself when you need it most.
o When life is especially difficult, remember that life happens even to 'good' people.
o Understand that you are part of something bigger.
o Trust in the flow of life.
6. Easy Exercise to Feel Joy
Here's an experiential exercise you can use to feel joy right now:
Remember one instance in life when you have had a strong feeling of being joyful. Take some time and allow yourself to relax your body. Simple breathe and let go of your tensions. Let yourself remember your joyful experience and bring that experience into your own body. See yourself having the experience of joy, and hear yourself having the experience of joy. Make you experience as bright and alive as possible.
Notice the feelings in your body. Be aware if these are the feelings of being joyful. If not, go back into your image and alter it in whatever way to necessary to bring about feeling joy. Feel those feelings in your physical body. Allow yourself to feel really good. If some part of your body isn't accepting the feeling, that's okay. Your only goal here is to shift your attention to joy, and bring some of it into your experience right now. Play around and see if this simple exercise can make you feel a little more joy than you had been feeling.
7. Advanced Exercise to Feel Joy
Continue allowing this feeling of joy to flow through your body. Now imagine being in the situation you are wishing to change. For example, maybe you are wanting to lose weight or end emotional eating. Feel your joy and at the same time, imagine yourself already having the outcome of your goal. Use your imagination. Put yourself in the picture. Live as you would like to live. Feel that life inside of your body. You can be as alive, vibrant, and joyful as you want to be. Stand in your body and put yourself in the situation that pleases you. Make the temperature exactly as you want it to be. Paint all the details. You get to do whatever it is you want to do, exactly the way you want to. Have a conversation. Say what you would say under those conditions. Receive compliments. Adore people. Be adored. Let yourself enjoy your success. Before you can create the life you want, you have to be able to imagine it and feel it and love it.
Joy is something that you can choose right now. By following these steps, you can figure out how you keep joy out of your life . . . and then take action to bring more joy into your life. You deserve to enjoy your life!
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Dr. Annette Colby, RD can help you take the pain out of life, turn difficult emotions into joy, release stress, end emotional eating, andmove beyond depression into an extraordinary life! Annette is the author of Your Highest Potential and has the unique ability to show you how to spark an amazing relationship with your life! Visit www.LovingMiracles.com [http://www.LovingMiracles.com/] to access hundreds of content filled articles and sign up for a Fr'ee subscription to Loving Miracles! newsletter.
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