Whichever holiday you are or aren’t celebrating this month, this time of year reminds us about JOY! Fortunately, joy can be found all around us, in the ordinary things we experience every day like a smile, laughter, our pets (or children), families, and friends. There is joy in music and art, play and creativity. Finding pleasure and delight around us is what brings about happiness.
Part of balancing our fortune and abundance with the tragedy and misfortune we see around us is finding and experiencing joy in what we have. If we fail to appreciate and enjoy our lives then it only makes it worse that there are others with less.
Joy and happiness feel so good, yet they can be temporary. Use this time of year to make a plan to sustain your joy beyond the holiday season. My friend Marina Giacomin, a “ Joy Expert”, suggests identifying the things in our lives which create joy, here is a short list you can add to:
- Tell or Share a joke
- Sing
- Smile
- Meditate
- Pray
- Be kind
- Dance
- Exercise
- Learn something new
- Notice the beauty around you
- Be in service to others
Joy doesn’t have to be a brief passing, but can be a more sustainable State of Being. Consider how you can keep joy as a regular part of your life, and not fleeting. That is the real gift this season can bring.
For more about happiness and joy, and sustaining it, here is a great Ted Talk by Matthieu Ricard who suggests we can use mind training to create more happiness in our lives, he says we spend more time making sure we look good on the outside, and less on our minds which controls the quality of our existence. Inspiring!
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