Understanding & Cultivating Joy
Today I want to talk to you about the importance of joy.
You probably know what it feels like to be around someone who is joyful. They are like a light - glowing and influencing everyone around them. Their laugh is contagious, they lift people’s spirits up around them, and they bring out the best in everyone who comes into contact with them.
To this joyful person, negative interactions with others are met with love and compassion. They understand why other people have harmed them, and they always see every challenge in life as an opportunity to better connect with themselves, others and a higher power. They are able to move through difficult circumstances with grace.
There is a phenomenon at play here - how does it work?
The world of quantum mechanics tells us that when you split physical matter down to its smallest parts, what you discover is that everything is just energy. You can watch this quick video to understand this at a very basic level, or here is a synopsis:
Physical matter, when you break it down to its smallest sub-atomic parts, is actually just energy.
Human beings are less physical matter than they are an energy field.
Energy fields broadcast a certain frequency and attract other energy fields that are resonating at the same frequency.
Joy, resonates at a certain frequency. So if you are a joyful person, you are actually an energy field broadcasting the frequency of joy.
This means, that you will impact / influence the energy fields (other people) around you, and you will also attract similar energy fields. Circumstances, thoughts, emotions, and people are all energy fields.
A person who is joyful experiences reality from a different perspective than someone who is resentful. It’s almost like they exist in a plane of existence or reality that is different. Life, people, and circumstances occur differently from that plane of reality.
Bottom line: If you resonate in joy you will not only positively influence those around you and bring them into a more joyful state, you will also attract situations, thoughts, and feelings that are similar to joy. You will experience reality differently, and it becomes a loop.
Now, the same thing goes for an emotion like resentment, hopelessness, or fear. You can get caught in a loop where you are broadcasting, attracting and stuck in a frequency of fear.
Although you don’t have to understand these scientific underpinnings to know that you want more joy in your life, I hope it encourages you to seek ways to cultivate more joy. If you can access this truth, you will have the power to not only shift your own experience of life, but the experience of the people around you. You can become the person described at the beginning of this email.
One caveat….
This doesn’t mean that you want to bypass feelings like sadness, grief, anger, etc. There is a time and a place for all of those feelings, and the trick is to feel them completely and let them go vs. repressing or supressing them and thus getting them stuck in your energy field. But… that process is for another email. ;)
Here are some mother-friendly ways that you can create more joy in a pinch:
Keep a joy log. Every day list 5 things that brought you joy. Good: List them mentally. Better: List them in a phone or digital note-taking app. Best: Write them in a journal. (The brain process things differently when we write by hand).
Call or text someone and acknowledge them for who they are in your life. Notice how much joy and love this brings you, and really feel it in your heart space.
Implement one thing in your morning that cultivates joy JUST FOR YOU. It could be frothing your milk for coffee, reading for pleasure for 5 minutes, lighting a candle and playing your favorite song, dancing or singing in the shower, putting your breakfast on a pretty plate, etc.
BONUS: Do a 5-minute meditation. Set your time for 5 minutes, play some peaceful music, and sit in a comfortable position. Focus on your breath. Breathe easily. Bring your awareness to your chest, and focus on generating the feelings of joy from the center of your heart. Imagine the feeling is a green orb surrounding your heart. Expand the orb out to encapsulate your whole body. See what it feels like to rest in the joyful, green orb. Now expand it past your body 3 feet in all directions. Once that is stable, expand it to the room you’re in. Then the house you’re in. The street you’re on. The city. The state. The country. The world. Keep going until your green orb of joy is surrounding the entire planet, and imagine that all of the people on the planet are receiving a little bit of joy from this orb. When you’re done, bring the orb back into your heart center, stretch, and open your eyes.
