You get what you focus on. When you focus on survival, that’s what you get. You survive. You just get by with the relief of nothing terrible happening. In a survival mindset, joy is a luxury. For a thriving mindset, joy is essential. Open to joy and thrive.
When we depend on circumstances to look a certain way for us to feel joy, we rarely experience joy.
Thriving is all about your mindset. See yourself with plenty of everything you need and want. See more than enough.
It takes courage and willingness to disengage from the insistent pull of practical reality and choose to create what we want to see and experience. This is not about becoming an ostrich, burying your head in the sand. It’s simply about getting curious to explore what both and would look and feel like.
Imagine that you paint your life to live it. What do you want to paint?
A picture of order, bills paid, to do lists with checkmarks and you sitting with your arms crossed looking pleased? That’s fine, but what if you focused on so much more?
Now, imagine painting a picture of you feeling alive and joyful, laughing and thriving. Not because of how much money you have, or how much you got done. You are joyfully thriving because you open to joy each day, just as you eat, drink and breathe.
Joy is part of our purpose in life. It is as important for our health and wealth as the air that we breathe.
Joy is our essence. Peel away the thoughts, emotions, beliefs and preoccupations that hide it.
Your heart is the gateway to your essence. You can’t feel joy when you are in your head. Joy is a full-bodied, open hearted experience.
You open to joy by feeling what you genuinely feel and dropping deeper to connect with your innate wisdom.
The quieter and more present you become the deeper your wisdom. In a moment of sheer presence, you can feel joy moving through you like ripples in a lake — the still lake of your being.
Joy can look and feel different ways
You might feel a quiet, peaceful joy, the glow of contentment. Or, feel free, alive with a rush of joy and a heightened sense of love. When you feel joyful, you experience your true self.
If you don’t take care of your joy, you start to feel weary and burdened. It can be hard to think positively. You feel alone, separate from the richness of life, with the weight of the world on your shoulders.
Five ways to open to joy and thrive
Our habits are more familiar than what it takes to keep our joy alive. It takes intention and mindful attention to create change.
Slow down and become present. Activate joy through the depth of presence you bring to daily experiences. A neighborhood walk. Nature. Sipping a favorite drink or savoring a meal, without doing something else at the same time.
Listen to your intuition. Listen to your body. Joy happens when we listen and respond to intuitive prompts. Take a break. Stop doing what you’re doing. Follow what your heart is telling you. Your heart knows. Your head has agendas.
Spend quality time with people you love. Deep listening and being truly present along with enjoying shared experiences are a rich and vital aspect of life. Relationships are complex and not always easy. Face what is in front of you. We learn so much and grow massively through our relationships. You can feel so much love from being courageous and real.
Explore your creativity. Being creative sparks joy. Although, if your creative expression happens mainly in the confines of a demanding job or business, feelings of pressure can flatten the joyful freedom of creative flow. You may find yourself longing for free flowing joy and free-form creating.
Take time for yourself. Unwind from the busy pace of life. Rest, relax and do things you love. Be kind and gentle with yourself. Kindness softens your heart and quietens your inner critic.
When you make joy a priority, just as much as food, air and water, you live in a natural state of abundance. You feed your imagination, your heart and your soul. Thriving happens easily, because you are attuned to who you truly are at your essence.
The world is what you make it. It can appear to be hard and inflexible. That is your mind’s judgment. When you relax your mind and listen to a deep wisdom inside you, you connect with infinite love and light filled with abundant possibilities.
Nicola Walker is an Anything is Possible mindset coach, with over 25 years of combined life coaching and hypnotherapy experience. She guides spiritually oriented people to get clear and create what they long for. Her focus combines mindset and practical intuitive guidance to manifest your heart’s desires.
Nicola is the author of the forthcoming book, Joy in the Middle of the Mess: An Evolutionary Adventure on the Quest for Success. One of her greatest joys is to walk and hike in the hills and along the beautiful California beaches, near her home in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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