Joyful Tradition
My friends, we are living in some hard times right now. For many of us the very foundations of our lives have been rocked to the core. We have been tested over and over this year, with little to show for it on the other end to compensate. So the idea of starting a joyful tradition may seem far fetched. But I urge you not to lose hope in even these bleak times, because it is the hard times where we have the opportunity to show our true character. So when you remember the year 2020 do you want to remember a giant dumpster fire, or do you want to remember how you chose joy even when it was hard.
The truth is that it is easy to be joyful when life is all sunshine and daisies. The real test is to choose joy even when life is hard.
So in honoring of these difficult times I offer you an exercise for choosing the threads of joy in your life.
1. Begin by making a list of all the things you have to do everyday. Simple enough.
2. Then make a list of all the things that bring you joy. Ideally there is some overlap between these two lists.
3. Highlight all the items that show up on both lists to emphasis what is going well.
4. Then take a look at the first list and ask yourself if all those things need to really happen. Like how soul sucking is the task in comparison to what the outcome is. If you realize you don’t need to do something anymore then don’t do it, or do your best to limit how often you need to do it (ex. I despise checking voice mail so I just don’t have a voice mail box set up anymore).
5. If there are things that you can not avoid doing on your list (ex. folding laundry), then what can you do to make those things more fun (ex. turn laundry days into a movie date night with your special someone and fold laundry together)?
6. Now that you have eliminated the things you don’t need to do and found ways to make old mundane tasks more enjoyable make a new list. List out the things you need to do with explanations of how you will now do those tasks with joy, and add to this list the things that bring you joy and commit to doing 3 of those things everyday (ex. I make sure I create something everyday, play music or sing, and meditate in some capacity).
7. Now go forth and be joyful.
I know that this might seem easy, but for some people this is a life long task of needing to choose joy. Thats is not to say I don’t have hard days or passing moments of angst, Its just that I choose to move through those experiences and hold on to something different. I choose the buoy of joy to keep me afloat. If this is something you want to learn more about or think you could benefit from some guidance on please reach out to me and you can start your joyful tradition today.
