Choose Joy (Especially When It Feels Hard!)

It’s so easy to feel joy when everything is going great---when your job is exactly where you want it to be, when you’ve just fallen in love, when the bills are paid, and your investments are doing well! These times it feels like joy is everywhere.

But as we know, life is not always easy. So how do we choose joy in the more difficult times?

START SMALL. Start by finding any morsel of joy you can find. Perhaps at first it’s just in a memory. Or bring home some tulips. I find tulips to be one of the most joyous flowers. I love filling my home with their beauty and joy! Or perhaps you have another flower that sings their joy to you. Or perhaps a certain scent fills you with joy? Baking bread or brownies can fill your senses with joy.

You might get together with a friend and rather than talking about all your difficulties, talk about joy as if it’s a big part of your life. Imagine all the joy you can and have your friend encourage you to make it even bigger. Feel your story inyour body and in all of your senses.

Joy is a higher vibration than our fears and worries. And when we’re trying to shift our outer circumstances, we must first shift them internally. The outer world then becomes a match to your inner world. And, yes, it will take practice. It’s very easy to focus on our outer circumstances as what is most real but the truth is the outer circumstances are matching to our inner landscapes.

You may need to give yourself a pity party with a good journal dump of all the tough things going on in your life before you’re even open to filling yourself with joy. By all means, go do it and do it big! Have your moment and then when you can, fill this in:

I find joy in_______________.

Here’s a small list to get you started:

My tulips

Having Gratitude

My cat

Your morning cup of coffee

My garden

Cooking

Baking

The ocean waves

A good road trip

A good book

Give yourself time to fill yourself up with gratitude and joy! As you train your mind to open and receive, you allow the abundant cosmic energy to rush through your system, constantly rejuvenating and replenishing you. This is true healing.

This is true joy.

Sending you all so much love & light!

PS….I’d love to know how this lands for you? Was it helpful? Are other things you’d love for me to write about---let me know.

With Joy,

Ellen