What an amazing time we live in. Today I went to do my routine grocery shopping very early in the morning because the shelves have been getting emptier and emptier. So I picked a new time to shop and there I was face-to-face with the most empty grocery store I’ve ever seen. In some ways it was like seeing a brand new store before the shelves were filled – kind of cool … How might those empty shelves be filled with joy?
Today’s post was an experiment. I was very short on time today to write a blog post for my thirty-one day joy challenge and I didn’t have my laptop with me. I decided my blog post would be written on a napkin and posted exactly the way I wrote it. I mean everyone knows what first drafts look like – MESSY! I was only going to post the picture, but I had trouble with uploading it as well as the resolution of the image. Here is the typewritten blog post …
There is no one way to cultivate a practice. I hesitate to dissect, analyze or take too deep a dive into the attributes of a practice because when we tear something apart looking to see what “it” is, we may end up understanding more about the parts and less about the whole.
I wasn’t exactly feeling joyful this morning. Here is some of what I wrote, “Joy is not exactly what I feel in this moment. I feel rushed. Why did I take on this thirty-one day challenge? It isn’t like I don’t have enough to do! How will I fit this in today? There are other work and home projects to attend to!”
What might the letters J-O-Y stand for? How about: J – JAM. Because joy is often very personal. What’s the jam that gets your joy rockin’? …
Where we place our focus matters. It has been wonderful having joy as a focus during the month of March. Some years back I was working in a professional setting and was asked not to use the word magic. I would have preferred not to be censored, but in that moment, I said okay, I’d do my best.
Joy can be sweet and simple like a …
What does it mean to do joy? Can we just make ourselves feel joy? What if we are doing something we don’t like or don’t want to do? Do we dare do joy when we or others are dealing with adversity or feelings of loss or fear? How can we bring joy to the things we don’t want or like to do? Can we feel joy and fear? Joy and loss? Joy and dissatisfaction?
Do you remember a time when you were doing something playful, that really engaged you? Was it when you were a kid? teen? adult? Was it a one-time occurrence or did it happen over a period of time? Were you playing alone or perhaps you were in a group? Did it involve an object of some kind? Was your play purposeful or purposeless? How do you feel right now when you think about it?
Maybe we don’t need to define joy, may we just need to be on the lookout for it and find it wherever we happen to be? Can it be found waiting in a long line at the grocery store at the end of a difficult day when we’re tired?
