Are You Cultivating Joy or Something Else?
“Inspiration from a Woman’s Soul: Cultivating Joy” is being published and launched today! It’s a beautiful, powerful & insightful book written by 38 real women (including me!) who are sharing our stories in the pages of this book www.CultivatingJoyBook.com.
Being part of this project was a God-send for me and one of the synchronistic and magical ways the Universe works. I had no idea that I WAS NOT Cultivating Joy in my life. It seems silly and unbelievable to say that now, but I truly did not realize how much cultivating, creating & making JOY in your life is a conscious choice and daily commitment. As much as I had already learned about myself, and life, over the last 10 years, somehow this most important, seemingly obvious element escaped my notice, has it escaped yours too?
Unintentionally, unconsciously, unwittingly, and automatically I took for granted that everything I was working toward creating in my life would inevitably BRING ME the JOY I was seeking. I didn’t knowingly BELIEVE that but that BELIEF lived and operated consistently in my subconscious so it influenced EVERYTHING in my life (thoughts, words, actions, etc.) without my knowledge or consent. I was fooled into “thinking” I was cultivating joy as I strove to live up to and in to my potential but secretly I KNEW I wouldn’t or couldn’t be truly happy, satisfied or joyful UNTIL I’d reached my potential, achieved my goals or lived my best life. I was totally focused on creating my life and the all elements of it, but I was not focused intentionally on creating and experiencing JOY. So I experienced moments of JOY, but it wasn’t an everyday occurrence or a natural state of being, it was sporadic and conditional based on what was happening and how well things were going. When I struggled to “realize my potential”, create the life, achieve the goals, or have the success I wanted, I assumed that meant I needed to be more intentional and focused on what I wanted so I’d be happy. It never occurred to me that if I simply FOCUSED ON CREATING JOY – I WOULD BE HAPPY!
Despite having a working understanding of the fact that you have Choose Joy and Cultivate Joy in your life I was still on autopilot with the biggest part of me plodding along thinking that once I’d accomplished my goals, brought my dreams and vision to life I’d be truly able to experience the kind of joy that I imagined came with that level of accomplishment. With all of the personal discoveries and epiphanies I’ve experienced over the last 10 years, I am stunned that it took me so long to truly experience this one simple thing.
I’m so grateful for this revelation! I am so grateful for this experience and all the experiences that lead me to finally and deeply understanding this most basic tenet of living a happy and fulfilled life! Just making this one shift in my life has opened up so much: a closer bond with my son, a huge shift in his behavior (for the better!), more completely ideal clients and MUCH MORE INCOME.
Now I ask you, take a moment to sit down and check-in with yourself. Are you feeling JOY daily? Do you live a JOYFUL life? Is your life mostly JOYFUL dotted occasionally with “pain in the pooper” moments? Or does life seem like a pain in the ass with occasional moments of JOY?
If you’re reading this and you’re inwardly rolling your eyes like, “yeah, yeah, I cultivate joy, that’s not my problem. My problem is I don’t have the life I want yet.” Then I’m telling you, (from personal experience!) you may get the CONCEPT of cultivating Joy but you’re not LIVING it. If you were living it, you would feel it, and it would feel good, – all the time – and your life WOULD BE the life you want and everything that comes with it.
Use the POWERFUL experiences and stories in the book, “Inspiration from a Woman’s Soul: Cultivating Joy”, to get you started. Every story in the book was written by a woman who, at some point in her life, “thought she knew” what it meant to cultivate joy and she shares her experience “living it” here.
www.CultivatingJoyBook.com
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