Can you truly enjoy life? Did you know that bright and warm moments can be preserved and multiplied? We tell you how to do it.
Our life, even in the period of cataclysms and difficulties, is filled not only with sad, unpleasant experiences, but also with joy. Everyone can remember how in those moments when there was no time for laughter, a well-timed joke suddenly caused a smile or a feeling that you are happy, no matter what.
Recall right now any joyful event in your life and analyze:
- How did you feel then? What did you want to do?
- How did joy respond in your body?
- How did you look at that moment?
- How long have you felt this joy? If not, what happened to her?
It is impossible to hold back joy itself, but we are able to keep its “aftertaste” in our memory, in our sensations. And learn to immerse yourself in this feeling when we need it so much.
How to accumulate this joy in yourself?
1. Immerse yourself in joy completely
Try to surrender to this feeling, always live it as a fleeting, but deserved moment of your life. And think about what can prevent you from enjoying joy at the moment when it visits you.
It can be:
- attitudes and beliefs — “If you rejoice a lot, then you will cry”, “How can you rejoice when someone feels bad”, “It is not customary in our family to openly express joy”;
- devaluation of one’s own feelings and achievements — “Why rejoice? What did I do? Nonsense, so everyone can”;
- fear of strong feelings;
- the fear of precisely joy is the experience that this feeling is followed by punishment.
Remember that these thoughts, beliefs and attitudes are not equal to you and your personality. This is just a part of you, not too happy, formed in this way due to difficult life circumstances.
More precisely, do not do it immediately, succumbing to the first impulse. Remember: it probably happened that you hastily called friends and acquaintances, shared your joy and soon found that it seemed to have disappeared. Why is it so?
Firstly, the reaction of the interlocutors may not be the one you expected. Your joy will simply fade away under the pressure of devaluation, ridicule or indifference.
Secondly, bringing any emotion outward reduces the intensity of its experience. Remember the classic advice of psychologists: if you are sad, talk to someone, and you will feel better. The same mechanism works with joy: we pronounce our feeling and reduce its “intensity”.
Therefore, I strongly suggest: stay alone with your joy! Live in this beautiful, life-giving emotion, do not splash it thoughtlessly. You probably didn’t get her that easily.
And if you still want to share your emotions with someone, make your choice slowly. Share joy with that person, from communication with whom it will not fade away, but will increase.
3. Capture your joy
Immersed in joyful experiences, give free rein to the body and voice. Express your emotions in movement, spontaneous dance and sound. Move on until you realize that you have satisfied your need.
And then sit down at the table, take a pen, a piece of paper and write down what comes to your mind right now. Perhaps it will be the most beautiful poetry in the world? In addition, if you have artistic means at hand, you can portray joy. Use bright colors, feel free to make strokes, splashes…
What gives a creative expression of joy?
- Passing an emotion not only through consciousness, but also through the body, we live it stronger, and this allows us to recharge its energy for a long time.
- The text and drawings you create become a “living imprint” of our joy, filled with light and energy. Try to look at your works after a few days, and you will smile, because the memory will immediately return these experiences of joy to you. How you manage them is up to you.
- On rainy days, it is precisely such works that embody the moments of your life that can pull you out of the blues and prolonged stress. Looking at the image of joy in a picture or text, you understand that everything in life is dynamic and, most likely, everything will be fine!
If you don’t have the opportunity to draw, sing, and dance in a happy moment, you can find another solution: pay attention to a natural image that is in tune with your mood — for example, a tree, a flower, a stream — or an image in an artist’s painting.
Keeping your joy, you will transform the world!