Finding Joy
Beginning the never ending journey to discover something deeper is to understand why life is full of tragedy, yet in the same instance it is full of joy! Joy is experienced more intensely than happiness. For a baby, it’s trying new things and hearing his “Mama” celebrate his success from across the room. For a child, it is a curiosity of what’s next on the adventure with a new puppy. For a teenager, it’s a perfect dress on an unforgettable night with her best friends. For a college student, it is walking across the stage with a sense of pride and accomplishment from the past 4 years. For a couple, it is a rush of excitement and a feeling they get even if they have been together for over 20 years. And for a family it is a new discovery together at the top of a mountain after a long hike. Joy is so many different moments that are transformed to an unforgettable experience. Each person experiences this emotion differently and through their own translation they know exactly when they feel it.
Yet for some, finding joy within is like searching for that button to last winter’s sweater in your junk drawer…wait you have 10 junk drawers… now what? It is frustrating to see others happy when you are trying to just make it through today. In some instances joy visits you, but it was a while ago. You are happy and grateful; ….(pause)…you just wish that child like excitement would burst through you!
Honestly and with all sincerity, joy will not always just come to you when you wish it would. Fortunately, that doesn’t mean all is lost and you are doomed for grey cloudy days, same ol’ boring sandwiches, 3:00 pm frozen day dream while the world is turning around you, and piles and piles of laundry…everywhere… Joy has to be recaptured! It must be stirred up and awaken from the stupor. No, you are not a failure if at first you are not feeling any better. It is a process; it could be re-changing the way you think about things, or maybe a break from what is bringing you down. A process that often times can be an opportunity to seek support.
For some who are feeling broken and “joyless” this process can start on a spiritual level. They take a moment of stillness in prayer and cry out to God for healing and a fresh beginning. For others the process may begin with a cup of tea, a comfy couch, and a day to reflect on the things they are grateful for. There are many personal solutions and ways to cope with the feeling of emptiness. Yet sometimes this pain goes deeper than a simple solution, and further exploration of what is igniting this is encouraged in order to move forward. Counseling can be a start for understanding how or why joy has not visited your heart in a while. Counseling may not be a start for others, and that is okay too.
I can personally say when I see someone experience moments of joy it does something to me that validates why I love to join with people on their healing journey! A friend shared from her own experience: “When I have been down on my knees praying with all my heart a blanket of peace surrounds me… soon that blanket is my healing agent. That agent then turns into something more beautiful than I could have ever imagined…. And it is JOY…”
These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
— John 15:11 in The Bible
A life of joy is not in seeking happiness. But in experiencing and simply being the circumstances of our life as they are.
— Charlotte Joko Beck quoted in Open Mind by Diane Mariechild
Written By:
Vanessa Crisp-LCSW