INSPIRATION | Rediscover JOY
I practice gratitude, patience and presence, daily. I've made conscious choices to decrease my stress and increase my happiness. Life seems to have done what it can to increase my stress and decrease my happiness over the past two years filled with highs and lows, all of which I appreciate as they offer perspective, though some I would have passed on had I been given the choice.
What I need to do is rediscover joy. I know from years of studying Dr. Brené Brown (and others) that joy is a complicated emotion, indeed terrifying! I had a brief glimpse of it and want it back.
A few years back, I googled and discovered one particular article by Omega Institute on exercising joy which appealed to me. It suggested that I come up with a list of 20 things that bring me joy. Not just that, but to quantify it. Gotta like an exercise that requires follow-through!
"Take a few minutes and list your top 20 favorite activities. Once you are done, go through the list and put a date next to the last time you actually did that activity. For any items that you haven't done in more than a month, schedule them into your calendar. Notice how much happier you become when you do the things you love."
MY 20 FAVOURITE ACTIVITIES
Family dinner at home with all four of my kids – at the same time (04 September for my birthday with plans already made for Thanksgiving in October and the Winter Break).
Lunch with girlfriends (in August we all met at Heydays located at the June Motel in Sauble Beach. It was a last-minute and fun afternoon. We have to do it again, soon!).
Travel to new places (I just returned from Fogo Island and Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland. In the early ‘90s, I’d visited St. John’s and saw the inside of a conference room, warehouse and a few grocery stores. This was a far more enjoyable trip! The best part of the restrictions being lifted as a result of being vaccinated is the opportunity to plan new adventures).
Invite friends to visit me as I settle into my new home in my new community (in late August I was thrilled to host a friend up from Oakville for a couple of lazy days. It was so fun! I hope to have a full calendar of visitors and activities from May through October 2022!)
Plan an outline of a story be it short or a novel or a screenplay (to exercise my imagination muscle that seems to have abandoned me. I’ve not written toward the completion of my current novel since I met Bill in Whistler back in October 2019. I willingly put down that project to focus on caring for him while simultaneously building a new business. It’s time to get back at it with a new story, plot and characters).
Take a photo walk (while I was in Newfoundland there were plenty of opportunities for photo-taking, it is jaw-droppingly breathtaking, a photographer’s dream! I hope to start up some local photo walks - you can get all the information in the navigation bar and click “Count Me In”).
Write 1,000 words – and then 1,000 more (daily, every time there is a blog entry or something posted on Instagram or I journal).
Discover a new tune on Spotify (happens all the time, even more fun is rediscovering tunes I’d forgotten about but not how they make me feel, music resonates in a visceral way for me).
Meditate (daily, often twice. I continue to enjoy the tracks from iAwake Technologies, and of course, the guided meditations by Colette Baron-Reid).
Enjoy Dad & Daughters lunches in Toronto (not since the pandemic with only cancelled plans so far).
Read good fiction (while away I read Midnight at the Blackbird Café by Heather Webber and The Jane Austen Society, written by Oakville author, Natalie Jenner. I’m greatly looking forward to reading The Book of Magic by Alice Hoffman being released on 05 October! Reading (rather than collecting) books needs to become a priority going forward).
Walk around the neighbourhood and get in my steps (now that I’ve got a clean bill of health from the surgeon, I want to get out and walk before the snow flies. I’m starting slow with 6,000 steps and will add 1,000 steps for every 10 pounds I lose. I want to get myself in a good place so I can use my reformer Pilates machine and maybe strap on my snowshoes this winter).
Find a new 100 Day project (the last one was completed while I was in the tin can, 100 days of sober, which became 110 days between 08 November 2020 and 25 February 2021. For me, it’s an effective way to start and/or stop a habit. Certainly, it’s not the supposed 10,000 hours required to become an expert at something, but it’s enough to determine whether or not something is worth pursuing. The last couple of years have proven to be challenging and given me a lot of opportunities to know myself - plenty to work on!).
Honour the flow of nature (I am always, in some way or another, honouring my neo-pagan witch practices. I hope to curate a group of women interested in flowing with me to the energy of the new and full moons as well as the changing of the seasons via the Wheel of the Year. The catch and release of the natural cycles is both grounding and freeing).
Participate in courses with Cat at The Sacred Pen (the last one I participated in was held in June and I had so much fun learning and engaging with new people, I’ll have to look at the fall schedule to see what is appealing and sign up!)
Design and finish a photo-based project (I completed and received in early August the 7 volumes of my old blog I created using BlookUp. It was a bear of a project. I think the next one will be smaller in scale, though equal in meaning.)
Maintenance day (wax, facial, pedicure, massage) is key to my ongoing effort to make my self-care a priority (I went to The Spa Room in Port Elgin in August and plan to go back in October. If I don’t take care of myself, who will? And it’s fun. Now to add in a regular haircut and life becomes one I can recognize).
Let love in (my experience with Bill - who passed away in August 2020 - made it clear that I am happiest when I have a partner who loves me for exactly who I am, there was no pretense for either of us, 37 years of knowing a person can do that. Showing up and being loved unconditionally for who you are is a heady experience. He cracked my heart wide open and I hope to keep it that way in order to welcome and enjoy another loving, supportive, and intellectually stimulating relationship).
Attend an intellectually challenging talk or debate or course (though I regularly listen to smart podcasts and the Munk Debates, I’d like to more consistently use my membership to MasterClass and take advantage of the oodles of opportunities available there).
Sleep 8-hours a night (made so much easier with my recently acquired CPAP machine, I now get a restful sleep every night making my days so much more enjoyable and energetic).
Of course, the list was written in no particular order. Twenty is not a very long list especially for someone who experiences joy in the simplest of things. Every activity could be in the #1 spot – depending upon the time of day or my mood. It looks like I have a lot of joy since most of my favourite things are done on a regular basis - there is nothing too sexy or unattainable on this list.
“There are random moments - tossing a salad, coming up the driveway to the house, ironing the seams flat on a quilt square, standing at the kitchen window and looking out at the delphiniums, hearing a burst of laughter from one of my children's rooms - when I feel a wavelike rush of joy. This is my true religion: arbitrary moments of nearly painful happiness for a life I feel privileged to lead.”
― Elizabeth Berg, The Art of Mending
Let's hope in the month of October I am able to enjoy every one of these activities, at least once, depending on the latest pandemic restrictions.
What about you? What 20 things bring you joy? Hell, what one thing brings you joy?
Do you do it regularly? And, if not, why not?