Joy, Gratitude, Peace and Love
Yesterday was International Day of Peace and Gratitude Day.
And I love how they both fall on the same day, especially with my recent reflections on joy, because I love how they are all intertwined.
When it comes to gratitude, the more we look around us and notice what we’re grateful for, as well as looking within and recognising what we appreciate about ourselves, the more grateful we can become.
Research shows that practising gratitude can help shift our focus and the way we think – and I feel it’s similar with joy.
The more we go joy-spotting, the more we begin to notice the joy that is already around us – and the more we notice joy around us, it can help to spark feelings of joy within. We get to experience life with a more joyful heart.
And I love the idea that joy is our true essence. It is who we were put on this planet to be. It is our true self.
The more connected we are to our essence, the more we can experience peace, ease and flow.
We were talking in the Inside-Out Circle last night about how pleasure and satisfaction are wonderful, but they both have their opposites. Pleasure has pain. Satisfaction has dissatisfaction.
But joy doesn’t have an opposite and I flippin’ love that!
Of course, we’re going to get disconnected from joy at times.
Whether it’s because of what we’ve got going on in our lives, because we’re no longer noticing the joy around us, or because we’ve become disconnected from our true self.
But our true self never leaves, our joy, is always there within and there is always joy around us, even when we aren’t able to see or feel it.
It doesn’t require a lot of doing or manufacturing, we can simply start to reconnect with it.
And I also love the idea that joy may not have an opposite, but it does have a twin… love.
Sometimes people tell me that joy seems too whimsical. That it’s a nice-to-have rather than a necessity. Perhaps they even feel guilty for experiencing joy when there’s so much difficulty and suffering in the world.
A friend shared the Mae West saying that was on her coffee cup yesterday “Too much of a good thing can be wonderful!”
And whether you see it as joy or whether you see it as love, I think you’d agree that we can never have too much of either and the world certainly needs more of both right now!
Keen for some more joy in your world, you can download 100 ways to say yes to life.
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