The Joy of.....JOY!!

Today is a Rainbowy, Sunshiny, Joy-y kind of day (for me anyway)!!

Today I went back to work today for the first time in about 5 weeks (ahhhh, big happy sigh) and since I really love my job, it was joy. I had an easy time getting ready for work, my kids were looked after without any hassle, on the way to work I chatted to a very dear to my heart friend (on my blue-tooth ear piece of course) and when I arrived at work I was greeted with lots of "oh your back" (in happy tones) and felt like today had lots of purpose in propelling me forward into what looks like being a fabulous and amazing year (today anyway!) all of which for me equals a day of JOY!!

Joy is one of those contagious feelings I think that I cannot pass up sharing. I LOVE joy. Not things that bring joy or something that happens to create joy but just pure and simple I love to feel joy for no other reason than that I want to be joyful.

Hmmm as I sit here I hear my ego whispering "You know it can't last. You can't feel joy ALL the time, its just not right" and I'm sure that there are many others that would be racing to agree - you cannot just be 'joyful' all the time and you know what? I agree...

I am a big believer in honouring all feelings - there is definitely a time for sadness, a time for anger, a time for grief etc but I also believe in having the choice, I believe that I have the power, in my life, to choose joy whenever I can. That does not mean that I don't feel other emotions but what I have learned is that I am able to choose a time that feels right to let a darker emotion have full reign, do delve deep into it, let it run it's full course and exhaust itself and then LET IT GO!!

I have by no means perfected this act and like all of us I am a student on a journey and some of the lessons are harder than others but man I'm keen to learn and give all of those lessons a red hot go!! What I have learned lately, and I think this has helped more joy find its way into my life, is to ease up on myself, to give myself a metaphorical 'chill pill', to remind myself to 'calm my farm' and hardest of all for me is to 'relax and just let it happen' (a little bit of me is cringing with that one now, can you say "control freak"?!). I read an interview transcript recently by a fabulous psychologist, 'happiness expert' and all round fab guy Robert Holden, when he was asked about finding peace and happiness he gave a VERY long list of all of the courses he had attended, things he had done, books he had read etc to find that all he needed to do was RELAX!! This struck a chord with me as I am totally guilty of striving to 'be' and 'do' so that I can 'have' all that I might possibly achieve in this little life which is definitely all great and purposeful BUT there has to be a balance (big light bulb!!) there needs to be a time when you just RELAX (strangely this is kind of a new concept for me).
So following that theme I have decided that there also has to be a time amongst the chaos and the turmoil and the complete CRAZY  that is so often the fabric of my life to choose what the feeling is, to give myself that positive space no matter what else is going on and find a space within me that is just joy..............