How Can I Cultivate More Joy in My Life?

Joy resides in the present moment. It is the acceptance of what is. It is the art of noticing the little moments of beauty throughout the day. It is in awe of the beauty of nature. It is in the wave-like rhythm of your breath. It is in the softening, the releasing, at the bottom of the exhale. It is trusting ourselves and the unfolding of our lives. Joy is an infinite resource within us all.

With a new week ahead, I like to ask myself, “How do I want to feel?”

This week, I’m focusing my curiosity on joy. How does joy feel in my body? Is joy available to me at all times? How does staying grounded, present, and in my body help me experience more joy? How can I consciously cultivate more joy in my life? 

What is the difference between joy and happiness? Joy comes from within and is associated with a sense of purpose, connection, or gratitude. It doesn’t necessarily depend on external circumstances. Happiness is usually linked to external factors, like achieving goals, receiving positive news, or experiencing pleasurable events. It's more situational.

Joy is our natural state. Joy is an innate quality that resides within us beyond external circumstances. Joy is not something we need to achieve or chase but rather something we can reconnect with by shedding layers of fear, conditioning, and negative beliefs. It is revealed through removing the things that block your access to it. 

In Buddhism, joy is seen as part of our true nature, emerging when we release attachments and desires. Similarly, many teachings on self-awareness and self-love emphasize that joy arises when we align with our authentic selves, free from external pressures.

However, we often become disconnected from this inner joy due to societal conditioning, stress, or unhealed emotional wounds. We become dysregulated and disconnected from our bodies. We numb ourselves with constant stimulation or substances. We forget how joy feels.

To reconnect with joy, we first reconnect with the body. 

“Your thoughts, feelings, and emotions come from how your nervous system interprets the facts of life. And they are compounded by the meaning you make about yourself, the world, and that thing that some call God.” - Christie Inge

With a chronically stressed nervous system, your body interprets the world as a constant threat. Minor inconveniences trigger disproportionate reactions, the consequences of which create an internal battle of never feeling good enough. 

Due to the nature of modern society, most of us are living in a chronic state of stress caused by overstimulation, urgency culture, and access to much more information than our body was built to process on a daily basis, to name a few. Many don’t feel comfortable in silence, reaching for the phone at any moment of downtime. 

We are so used to ignoring the signals of our body. We act like our body is an inconvenience to our experience. This thing we have to constantly feed, move, clean, and tend to. For many, their relationship with the body is rooted in restriction and control rather than love and devotion. Joy operates with the frequency of love. We can't access our joy if our connection with our body is rooted in fear. 

Reconnecting with your body can look like:

-Tuning into your hunger signals, chewing slowly, noticing how different foods make you feel. 

-Connecting with your breath, noticing where you feel the breath in your body. 

-Creating space for stillness, scanning the body and noticing the sensations you feel.

-Moving in any way; walking, dancing, yoga, etc. 

-Somatic practices

Somatic practices are tools you can use to deepen your connection with your body. Here is one you can try right now:

Suspend the Moment (Somatic Psychotherapy Toolbox, by Manuela Mischke-Reeds, MA, LMFT)

Suspend: Hit the pause button on anything that you are doing right now. 

Notice: What is happening in your experience right in this moment. 

Track: How you are feeling your body right now. 

Stay: Don’t change anything, but stay present.

Continue what you are doing and see if you experience yourself differently.

Questions to ask yourself:

Where is my attention right now?

How do I experience my body right now?

What do I notice in my awareness right now?

Through this practice, you learn to witness yourself and notice what is happening in the moment and in your body, learning to witness your feelings, thoughts, sensations, movements, and behavioral responses to people and situations. This will help you learn how to self-regulate and pause before responding. Cultivating an inner witness is how we connect with the body's wisdom, create a sense of safety, and reconnect with our inner joy. 

From this embodied place, we can use our inner witness and curiosity to explore what is blocking our access to joy. Is it my mindset? Is it my resistance to change? Am I more comfortable with the familiar even though I am saying I want something different? Have I been chasing someone else’s idea of joy?

When we dare to face the source of our unhappiness, when we take responsibility for our joy, we stop giving our power away. However painful it may be, we courageously look at what is true right now, in the present, and consciously decide what to do to move forward. 

The more you cultivate this embodied presence, the curious observer, the more you can see that joy is all around you because joy resides in the present moment. It is the acceptance of what is. It is the art of noticing the little moments of beauty throughout the day. It is in awe of the beauty of nature. It is in the wave-like rhythm of your breath. It is in the softening, the releasing, at the bottom of the exhale. It is trusting ourselves and the unfolding of our lives. Joy is an infinite resource within us all.

Here’s to another week. I hope you find some time to connect with your joy. If you need a little inspo, here is a song that always helps me reconnect with my joy.