Many people tend to think of joy as coming from an outside source; someone or something makes us happy and joyful. Family can bring us joy, money can bring us joy, beauty and love can bring us joy. All those are external things that may, indeed, contribute to our overall sense of joy, but in reality joy comes from within. Nothing can bring us joy because it's already there inside of us, tucked away in some corner; waiting patiently to be discovered.
If you want to find joy, the quest then is to discover how to release the joy within. The first thing you will need to do is to define what joy means to you. Don't define joy in relation to things, but instead, in terms of feelings: Feelings such as adventure, safe, freedom, creative...whatever feelings that come to mind when you think of the word joy. Everyone will probably have different words, and that's O.K. Those feelings represent your core values. Those are the values you find most precious in life and would greatly miss if you couldn't experience them.
Once you discover what your core values are, you can begin to access them in many, many ways...not just doing, being or having something. For instance, if freedom and creativity were two of your highest level core values, you could look for ways to feel creative and unfettered. You can instantly access the feelings of freedom by remembering a time past when you felt most free. It's not the event that brings you joy, it's the residual feeling that stays with you.
So each day, instead of looking for ways to be joyous, begin looking for ways to feel creative and free. How can you be creative in a grocery store or while doing the laundry? How can you feel free when working toward a goal or fixing dinner? Finding joy means living up to your core values, and they are everywhere you look. Here's a simple guided writing activity to really narrow down what matters most to you...your highest core values.
Finding Joy in discovering your Core Values:
Step 1
Take out a sheet of paper, or start a new page in your journal. Without thinking too much about what you're going to write, let your thoughts float back to a time when you felt utter joy. Briefly describe the circumstances in paper. As you describe your event, focus on your feelings at the time and where you felt them in your body.
Step 2
Now take a moment to re-read what you have just written. Use a highlighter and mark the feeling words used in your description of the time you felt joy (happy, excited, satisfied, connected, etc.).
Step 3
The feeling words that you highlighted in step 2 are a part of your Core Values; especially when it comes to releasing joy. Choose the two feeling words that jump out at you - remember, don't think too much about them, trust the process and you'll know the right words to choose.
Step 4
With your feeling words in hand, journal for the remainder of the week on other ways you can access these feelings. In other words what are you currently doing that brings you joy, and what can you begin to do that will release your wild and joyous self?
Zan Z. Packard is a freelance writer, coach and creator of The Journey Within: a guided journaling workshop. Upon completing her Master of Arts in Counseling, Zan began her research into the fine art of living with introversion and is currently working on her first book.
Zan is an extreme introvert herself who spent the majority of her adult life hiding this fact from others. In hiding no longer, her greatest joy has been learning about her unique personality traits, and celebrating all they bring to her life. Affectionately known as the Adventurous Introvert ™, Zan has shared her wisdom with numerous clients and readers. To find out more about her strategies for embracing introversion, please visit http://www.zanpackard.com
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