I have a friend who was complaining that her last family vacation was challenging. They had planned the camping trip with great expectation, and then she got to the reality of child wrangling, cooking in the great outdoors, insects etc. She said in desperation, “where is the joy?” The things she thought would make her happy, weren’t fulfilling her. She was planning things that SHOULD be fun, why weren’t they?
It’s because you can’t THINK your way to joy. We FEEL joy. Take a minute to conjure up a previous joyful experience and then tune into your body. I experience it as a kind of heart opening, an expansion and uplifting of my chest. The mind will tell us that certain things or experiences will fulfill us, but it is making a decision based on flawed data, all of it from outside of ourselves. Advertising, other people’s experiences, even our own memories of the past, go in to the brain. Then they get processed by the ego, which makes it’s decisions based on what it knows will make us look good, by being able to accomplish without risk to self-image or status quo, and come out as the answer to the question, “What do I want now?”
Joy lives in the body. The answer to the question of what do I want now? lives there too. The answer may not make sense. It may not be rational, it may look impossible (at first). There is a reason we talk about gut instinct, heart’s desire, a hunger for success, community, love, God. It’s because these are feelings, and you need to access them with the part of you that feels. The brain actually doesn’t feel anything, it has no sensory receptors for pain or touch!
I can help you access your feelings and manifest your desires. I have spots left in The Desire Course, Nov. 8 – 10 in Downtown Asheville, and a few spots on my one-on-one coaching calendar. Call me at 828-348-4925 to discover how you can have more joy.
