Discover What Sparks Joy!
Close your eyes and think about what made you feel full of joy and happiness as a child. When you felt light and free. How does it feel?
Our sense of freedom is ultimately about how much we feel 100% ourselves and how effortless and easy it is to express who we truly are, in all aspects of our lives. Ask yourself, how aligned is your full self with the life you live? How much joy can you allow yourself to feel in your everyday life?
During meditation I began connecting with the feelings of joy. The emotion came to me as a teacher. It encouraged me to find the joy in life and follow it. Discover the things that personally spark joy in my life. In this process I was moved to create a joy exercise.
Joy Exercise
So I began meditation and thought of every single thing that I appreciated and loved in life. It was in exercise in intuitive feeling. I wrote a list of all the things and ran down the list using a feeling exercise to record the sensations in my body. I would think of the thing that I thought brought me joy, and I allowed my body to feel it. Immediately, a feeling would rise in my body and it would tell me the answer if it sparked joy. Things that sparked joy immediately rose somewhere between my heart and my head. A sound of “eeee” of excitement would squeal from my mouth, my heart would burst, and light would rush to my head. Some of the things that sparked joy made me smile so big like I was going to burst with happiness! Things that sparked less joy existed somewhere between my root, sacral or solar plexus chakras, existing somewhere in my stomach. If it was lacking in joy, it would feel like a vacuum, sucking the light down into a dark pit downwards.
Oftentimes we think or believe that certain things bring us joy and happiness when in reality they don’t. So much of what we believe is tied up in our ego, our programming, our identities and our societal roles. People create identities for themselves, and many of the things that we believe make us happy are really there to reinforce the concept of that identity. So this intuitive exercise is meant to bypass the ego and concept of self, and to use feeling instead of thinking in order to determine what truly brings joy.
You can try this experiment with anything. Your list could even extend to things that are outside of your known sphere. You can think of things that you’ve never tried or you have no contact with, but somehow you think of them anyways. Use your intuition to create the list and be open to all of the possibilities. This is how you can discover and consider new joys in life.
Things that spark joy can be seemingly big or small. They don’t necessarily have to be hobbies, they can also be everyday little details. Whatever makes you feel alive, grateful, joyful and free! Meditate upon what lights up your soul. What sparks joy. What fills your body and being with so much happiness and smiles that you cannot deny?
So try this exercise and give it a go! Here’s an example list of some of the things that spark joy for me:
Feeling the warmth of sunshine on my face and body
Breathing fresh air and feeling the breeze caress my skin
Laying on the earth, nestled in the grass or sand beneath me
Hearing the sound of wind rustle trees
Seeing sea grass, blades of grass and wildflowers sway in the wind
Listening to birds and the sounds of nature
Watching butterflies float by
Smelling the sweet scent of flowers in the air
Flowers and plants
Being near the ocean, hearing the waves, feeling the ocean breeze, being in water
Seeing the sunlight scattered through palm trees as they sway above
Feeling the humidity fill my skin with moisture
Watching sunsets on the beach or anywhere
Seeing rainbows, dramatic clouds, full moons, and stargazing
Admiring vistas, nature, dramatic landscapes
Admiring wild animals
Exploring nature and being active in it: hiking, biking, swimming, kayaking, rafting, zip-lining
Going on new adventures
Traveling around the world and being in different cultures
Cruising on a motorbike
Exploring organic markets around the world
Shopping for handmade woven textiles
Generally being surrounded by nature and lots of green foliage and tropical trees
A really comfy, luxurious bed. Getting cozy!
Really good music, singing and dancing
Outdoor rainfall showers, baths
Selecting, cooking and eating delicious, vibrant produce
Having new experiences, learning new things, seeing new things
Being in awe or in wonder of something
Experiencing magical surprises and synchronicities in life
Creating, writing, speaking, and expressing my truths, values and ideas
Having wonderful conversations with strangers
Being inspired and surprised by acts of love, generosity and kindness from strangers
Engaging with open and adventurous souls full of light, humor, curiosity and love
Seeing wild children run free and laugh and be weird and goofy
BEING weird and goofy, playful, running free and laughing
Joy is what makes life worth living. If you want to enjoy life, then it’s your personal responsibility to find personal joy and cultivate more of it in your life. I promise you that your soul is begging for you to pursue joy and be joyful. The Universe is actually encouraging us to enjoy life, it simply just wants us to enjoy life. So let go of control and allow yourself to!
Pause and get in touch with how much of your energy and time goes to things that do not spark joy in your life. Perhaps they even induce dread, anxiety, unhappiness, or it feels like a dark cloud above you or a deep pit in your stomach. Choosing to spend your energy, days and your life on things that don’t light you up is a tragedy. And if you’re even remotely aware of this unhappiness and choose to do it anyways, you’re the only one preventing yourself from living a happy life.
When you start aligning your life with the things that light you up, you are living the life your soul and humanity needs you to live. It’s an individual responsibility but a collective effort. We so desperately need to raise the vibration of our world to protect our long-term health and well-being of humankind and of the planet. The way to save ourselves and the planet is to simply align with what sparks joy in our lives.
Your joy is your freedom, your purpose, your guiding light! Follow it!