I first heard the following quote decades ago, and it’s brought me great comfort: “Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God.” … Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
I found these questions recently and they are apparently designed to boost joy. Try them and report back please!
1. What experiences, however mundane, gave you pleasure today?
2. What praise and feedback did you receive?
3. What were your achievements, however small?
4. What made you feel grateful?
5. How did you express kindness?
You can see how thinking about these questions can prime you to look for these things.
A beautiful, even simpler practice (from Emotional Brain Training – www.ebt.org) is to look for 10 “joy points” every day. The intention at the start of the day is to set out to notice what little things bring you joy. Is it the moments you hear a beautiful song? Is it receiving a thoughtful text from a friend wondering how you are feeling? Is it petting a dog or cat?
These little moments of joy end up becoming a string of pearls stretching out throughout your day. Beautiful moments make up a life.
These questions have been haunting me.
I have been having trouble finding joy even though a friend recommended “grabbing joy” as an antidote to sadness recently. Grabbing it worked for a while and momentarily. But in the long run it started to feel like a lot of work and kind of superficial.
Pleasure seems in short supply these days too. I am confident that this will end, so I’m not too worried.
I do appreciate that your blog brought this kind of thinking back to the front of my mind.
Interestingly I find gratitude works well. It’s not really joy but it is sufficient. There are so many things, people an ideas to be grateful for. I find I can even be grateful for this time of sad reflection. Beautiful sad moments make up a life too.
Why am I so lucky? Now there is an interesting question.