Why is joy so fleeting?

Here’s a video blog looking at why joy is so fleeting and ways to be able to feel joy more often. Enjoy!

Joy is an emotion that occurs when you are totally at peace and living in the Now. You are not thinking about the future or the past or what you need to do later in the day. 

Joy is the sheer pleasure of being present and attentive to the moment at hand, and whatever is arising. Few of you can stay present for very long. You skip all over the place with your thinking and therefore joy is lost. 

It takes focus, immersion, surrender and acceptance for joy to be present. It is not a doing or an efforting, it is an ease, a relaxation into what is.

The questioning mind keeps you away from joy. The judging mind sends it away further. All these mind activities keep you stuck in the head and away from your heart, which is where joy is felt. So you can’t have lasting joy unless you can rest in your heart. When you can do so, you see beauty and joy everywhere. 

You see it in nature, in the sunshine, in dogs playing, children laughing. You see it in life and its busyness and you see it in the faces of those who are eating cake or ice cream or who are on an endorphin high after exercise. Joy is everywhere when you are in the receptive state to see it, feel it and receive its vibration.

That means your heart needs to be peaceful and for many of us, that isn’t the case very often. Many people have hearts full of emotional pain, yet to be released, full of fear and mistrust, confusion and pain, doubt and loss. There are lots of emotions and painful thoughts or beliefs leading to and perpetuating these low vibration emotions and energies. People’s bodies are filled with these issues creating emotional density or baggage. The heart is weighed down and joy which is very light is not felt.

It can be felt temporarily when you do something that stills you, that takes you to your heart and to enough inner silence that you can hear the heart’s message. This might occur during meditation, a walk-in nature, holding a baby or a beloved pet. Whatever it is that takes you inside yourself and quietens your mind, then you can feel joy.

Joy can last and become your predominant experience, once you have cleaned out the emotional density and ceased reacting to the events that occur around you. 

If someone cuts you off in traffic, you don’t have to get agitated or angry. You can stay calm and peaceful. It’s a choice. A habit to break and a decision to choose differently. Even if someone is in your face saying unkind things, you don’t have to react with fear or with anger back. You can just stay centred, send love to your heart and your inner child, and choose peace. You can send the person love and acknowledge their power, for that is what they are truly seeking, to be seen, heard, acknowledged and accepted. They are hurting inside and lashing out. Don’t deepen their wound by reacting badly/painfully, send them love and help them heal. If you can do this, you can maintain your state of balance, peace and joy, no matter what you encounter.

It is possible, you just have to learn to do so, to be able to step back and witness what occurs and choose your reaction. So monitoring your thoughts and being quiet enough to hear them, is an important skill to learn in order to have peace and joy all the time.

If your body automatically reacts with exaggerated fear responses to situations this is a signal that you have trauma inside that needs to be released. Your body is reacting as if you are in severe danger when you are not actually in danger.

A door may bang, a raised voice might occur, a car backfires and your body goes into freeze, into hypervigilance and defensive reactions. This is a sign that you need to comfort your body, connect inside and release that stress, tension and trauma, so that your body can relax, become more peaceful and able to relate to others, to live in more joyous and open ways. While your body feels there is a threat, danger, it won’t relax fully. This makes it hard to have sustained joy as your mind is preoccupied expecting danger and scanning for it.

The scanning for danger distracts you from the moment, the stillness, the joy of being present to what is. It keeps you activated, primed ready to respond to whatever does occur. It can be exhausting even though nothing bad is actually happening.

You can use Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE) and other embodiment activities to help you to clear out the stress, tension and trauma in your body, so it is easier for you to be in the now, to relax and to enjoy life. TRE activates the body’s natural, inbuilt mechanism for releasing stress, tension and trauma. It helps to calm your nervous system, to come out of freeze, fight and flight, back into calm social engagement, where you feel safe, can relax and play with others and enjoy life.

It is well worth learning TRE to help you be calm, playful and joyful as you move through life. It does take some time for your body to reach this state. You have to clear out the old stuck energies so the new lighter energy can enter. Thankfully with TRE, you can do it at home, whenever you want, as part of your self-care process. Once you have learned how to self-regulate your TRE you can do it on your own, for free, for the rest of your life. Your body will thank you for it!

Even if you temporarily lose your cool and need to balance back up, you can do so quickly if you don’t berate yourself for it. You can simply notice that you reacted, learn from it, heal whatever button or event it triggered from your past and vow to react differently in future. Love yourself and the situation for the healing it enabled. Thank it and let it go. No need to hold on to it. No need to beat yourself up for slipping or not being perfect.

You are human and you are evolving and growing each day. Each day moves you towards having greater peace and joy in your life. The recipe is clear, less doing more being, less judging more accepting, less resistance more allowance, more fun and creativity, more stillness and going within, more practice and friendships – more sharing and growth. All of this adds up to a life full of joy and happiness, being of service in whatever way feels right to you. 

Blessed BE. Amen. May joy be in your hearts now and always. So be it.

How to shine your light brightly?

Most of you think you have to do something special to shine your light, to make a difference to the world. You think you need to wait until your gifts have awoken, you have finished that course, read that book, achieved some goal. Those are all mind-activities, judgements on self that in essence say “I’m not good enough as I am, I am not special, unique, capable or interesting enough, I have to be more“.

We tell you there is no more needed, you are enough. You are all enough exactly as you are. When you can rest in your heart you will know this fully. When you are in your mind you doubt it. Drop into your heart. Take a deep breath and sit there. Sit there with the whisperings of your heart. What do you feel? What messages do you get? Breathe through any emotional pain and let your heart open wider. You may experience some physical pain in your body when you do this.

Most of us have put layer upon layer of armour around our hearts to protect our vulnerability, to stop us feeling the pain, the hurts from life. To awaken our vitality, our joy, our essence we need to let the armour go, let our hearts shine brightly to be seen, heard, felt. When you do this you radiate love, joy and peace. You uplift those around you just by your vibration.

You don’t have to do anything special, have any particular gift or ability, just a loving, open heart radiating peace out into the world. When you heal your hurts and align with your heart you are a powerful gift to the planet and all whom you interact with.

Each of you is this right now. You are just in the process of taking off your armour, the layers of density around your heart, to shine your light so brightly that it awakens others to feel their hurts, clear their hearts and sit in peace and essence.

You do not have to do anything in particular to reach this place. Life does it to you. Life brings you the situations, people and experiences you need to crack open your defenses and to melt back into oneness with your heart and all life. Life does it to you. You don’t need to do it. You don’t need to search, build yourself up. The process is the opposite. It is a stripping away of all that is false, all that is projected, to come back to your core, to see you are perfect as you are.

We each have our own specialness, our uniqueness, our own vibratory essence that serves the world just by existing. Follow your heart, let it guide you forth, to live a life that is meaningful to you, that sets your heart on fire, your mouth alive with anticipation, that has you dancing on the inside. You can and you will. Life is guiding you there.

Trust that what occurs to you is occurring for a purpose, there are no mistakes, no punishments, no luck – just life helping you shed that which no longer serves you, so you can show your true self, your essence to the world. It is enough to just be you. It is enough to be alive, breathing, coping with all that comes your way. It is enough to choose to live with love and kindness as your beacon guiding you through.

Most of us find it easier to be loving and kind to others, more so than we are to ourselves. You are learning to love and accept yourself. You are learning to honour who you are and to see it is enough. Just by being born – you are enough – you have a right to exist and be happy. Life will guide you to that place. So don’t fight against life and its events, know they are guiding you home, into your heart, so you can shine your light brightly, effortlessly being who you truly are. Blessed BE. Amen.

There’s no rush. This is life’s process. It is not up to you. Your core, your soul essence is in control, not you. Accept this and live peacefully. Fight against it and you will have unrest all your days. You cannot make yourself other than who you really are. You cannot make yourself better. You are perfect as you are.

Yes, you can learn and grow and that is the whole point of life, to evolve in love and happiness for all. But you are not changed at the level of the Soul. You just are that already. You are awakening to the realisation that you are already whole and complete, the work is already done, so you can relax and BE. There truly is nothing you have to achieve. Let your heart guide you forth and you will always feel at home, connected to love, life and all that you need. So be it. Amen.

By Jodi-Anne M Smith (3 July 2017).
Further free guidance on healing techniques and self love are available on the Life Insights and Healing from child abuse pages of this website.

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