Read this if you’re looking for more JOY in your life!
Practice Gratitude!
They say.
We are consistently told that gratitude practice is good for wellbeing – and there is certainly a lot of evidence to show that there is truth in this.
BUT
I believe JOY matters more to our everyday wellbeing than gratitude.
I’ll tell you more about why I think JOY is so important, why I think it’s easier to tap-into and accumulate and how I know that connecting with nature is a short-cut to bringing it in.…
But first…
The problem with Gratitude
When people talk about the benefit of gratitude in our life, what they are talking about is the practice of gratitude. The habit of regularly, daily, giving conscious thought and awareness to the things and people in our lives that we appreciate. And if we’re really getting into the nitty gritty, connecting with WHY we appreciate those things and people.
Regular, habitual, gratitude practice has been shown to improve our feelings of well-being – and for this reason it is often included in the list of things we ‘should’ be doing to maintain positive wellbeing.
In order to become a ‘practice’ the act of tuning into our appreciation needs to be practised – ie. we need to do it regularly in order to get better at it and for it to become a habit.
And we all know how tricky new habits can be to create!
It takes a lot of conscious attention – we have to make the time, direct ourselves to do it, and actively think about it, and THEN find a way of emotionally connecting with for it to have real impact.
It is first and foremost a ‘head brain’ thing to do.
The other thing we know is that when things feel fun and easy, we’re more likely to keep doing them (hence we can easily adopt a habit of eating cake, but much harder to feel the desire for quinoa (just me?!)). When they feel hard, difficult, requiring effort – we less inclined to keep going: we need to deploy all sorts of ‘tactics’ to keep us going, until it becomes habit.
And I have a confession to make.
Being grateful can feel flippin’ hard!
Even though I know from all the research studies and evidence (and I am very evidence lead in my coaching practice) that it ‘should’ be good for me (and sometimes it DOES feel really heart-warming when I sit and ‘do’ some gratitude practise) - if I’m going to be truly honest with you- I often don’t like doing it. I can find this whole gratitude practice quite a challenge,
Sometimes I really struggle to find things to be truly grateful for, that I really connect with on a deep level.
So, it’s not unusual for me to feel ‘heavy’ about doing the practice.
It can too often feel to me like another ‘thing’ on my list, and so I either don’t do it, or I do it in a superficial way, just to get it off my list. This leads to me either just listing a whole load of things that I ‘should’ appreciate, but without any real emotional connection to it, OR simply reeling off the same old list of things (my house/home, my friends, my family, my health etc etc.).
Now these things are all great, and they are all things I do genuinely appreciate. And from a human connection and showing others that I value them in my life point of view, it is important to show my gratitude TO THEM. But that happens by me telling them, not by me writing it down on a bit of paper.
For me, it’s almost like the practice of writing down, or thinking about the things I am grateful for diminishes how I feel about them, in a wierd way.
It’s similar to the overuse of words like “I love you”. They mean more when they are used with intention, and said truly from the heart. When they are used with abandon, all the time, with everyone, they begin to lose the quality and depth to their meaning.
Plus - I then start feeling bad about:
the fact that I’ve done no gratitude practice
the feeling that I’ve done it, but half-heartedly
the fact I’m struggling to find things to be grateful for when I know there are people WAY worse off than me
(TRUE STORY - the day I was grateful both for still having my own teeth and that I didn’t live in Syria didn;t really leave me feeling that great - though it was a bit of a wake-up call that something needed to shift for me!!)
In short …
I can often find gratitude practice hard work and a bit of a chore. It doesn’t always feel fun. It too often feels like something I ‘should’ be doing for my own good rather than something I feel excited about doing.
Here’s the thing: there’s a LOT of talk about gratitude.
But it’s not THE ONLY or THE MAIN route to boosting our emotional and psychological wellbeing and …SPOILER ALERT… it’s NOT for EVERYONE, ALL of THE TIME.
It’s OK to not enjoy it sometimes. It’s OK if it just doesn’t work for you right now.
And if this is the case case for you, PLEASE don’t use it as another reason to beat yourself over the head with a stick (“I can’t even be grateful for all the wonderful things I have in my world”).
Just stop doing it (for now) – try again another time.
Consider a different way.
A way that I believe is EVEN MORE important.
And what’s even better is that I also believe this other thing is WAY easier to access.
Try jumping for joy instead!
My Ode to Joy
It began in the garden.
If you know me, you will know that I passionately believe with all my being that deepening our connection with nature is ESSENTIAL for our wellbeing, psychologically, physiologically and physically, as well we for our heart and soul.
And this week I have been back out in the garden, watching, observing and connecting with so many small things. Whilst this is generally nothing unusual for me, it has ashamedly been a little while longer than I’d like since I have spent any significant time in nature just ‘being’.
And I began to notice something happening.
I began to sense a growing smile on my face. I felt compelled to close my eyes and breathe deeply, and to really connect with all the things I was noticing.
The bee flying around from flower to flower, carrying more and more pollen (and a snail?!); the male blackbird watching me for a while to see if he felt safe to come and gather food to feed the two fledglings that were hollering in his ear; the Blue Tits cheep cheeping away as they fed on the peanut feeder; the way the birds paid attention to each other, and the hierarchy of which birds have way to who; the scent of the grass (that was also making my nose and eyes itch); the call from above that made me look up and see two Red Kites circling overhead; the glorious pops of colour from the cherries and Strawberries and all the flowers now blooming in the borders; The gentle movement and swishing of the breeze through the leaves and the grasses…
And so it went on.
I began to feel a growing warmth and lightness within.
I delighted in the connection and all the things I could see, hear and smell.
I felt a strong sense of me belonging to this world of nature too, of feeling privileged to witness all these things, and a feeling of calm, contentment and happiness that I was having this experience – in these moments.
I felt uplifted, and alive.
I was feeling full of JOY.
And it got me thinking about the power of joy.
Jumping for joy
Joy is an emotion that is universal. It is consistently identified as one of the core or basic emotions understood and shared across all cultures, with universally recognisable facial expression. And one of the characteristics of the feeling, is the desire to ‘jump’ for joy!
It is a reflection of an innate physiological response to an experience creating sensations of delight, pleasure, satisfaction, fun – that we experience as a feeling of joy.
Joy feels good!
And this is what joy ‘looks’ like:
round things
gentle curvy lines
lots of bright colour
symmetry and repeat patterns
Abundance
Sparkling water
These are all features of things that across the world, across cultures, are associated with the feeling of joy. They are readily found in nature (think cherry blossom, blackberries, clear rivers and babbling brooks, rolling hills, fields of flowers, eggs) but also think hot air balloons, bubbles, ice-cream cones (with sprinkles!) and confetti - lots of it!
They all reflexively spark our reward and happy hormones (dopamine and serotonin) – which makes us feel great, and maybe even wanting to ‘jump’ for joy
There is Always Joy in Nature
Basically – all the things listed above reflect features of nature that would signal to us that we are safe and that food, clean water and shelter is plentiful (no thorns, sharp edges or drab, grey and dreary concrete here!).
And because we are part of the natural world, we are primed to readily respond to these things as we encounter them – making nature the PERFECT place to gather in those little moments of joy we are seeking.
They don’t need a lot of thought.
They don’t need planning.
And we can recreate them in our daily lives, even if we can’t get outside.
We just need to notice !
Notice - on purpose!
Noticing lots of little moments of joy soon adds up.
The best tasting cup of tea in the morning = JOY!
Unexpectedly finding ‘that thing’ you’ve been looking for for weeks = JOY!
The ray of sunshine beaming through the trees in the woods = JOY!
The wry smile from The Teen that tells you he’s fine and he loves you really = JOY!
Dancing or singing like no-one is watching or listening = JOY!
These are all some of MY little moments of joy from this week.
And in mho - because they go straight to the heart, it’s easy to get into the swing.
Plus - because joy is an innate emotion creating those feelings of delight, it’s easier to tune in, it’s easier to notice, and it’s easier to gather all the moments in the everyday, creating a wave that permeates the whole of your life.
You get to relish all those all these little moments, and bring in more and more, with intention, every day - which adds up to a life you can truly ‘enjoy’.
So how about starting your own Joy Jar?
Instead of (or as well as) asking yourself “What am I grateful for today?” ask yourself “what has brought me joy today?”
See what comes up, see how it feels, see if it works better for you.
If want to hear more about what joy looks like – I thoroughly recommend this TED talk by Ingrid Fetell Lee called Where Joy Hides.
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Feeling ready to start creating a midlife you truly Enjoy? I’d love to chat with you- send me a message, let’s connect and we can set up a time to grab a cuppa and have an informal ‘chinwag’ (a friendly chat!) about what you are looking for, what I offer, and whether we are a great match to work together.
Warm wishes,
Nicki
