My Beauty ~
Like a gardener, cultivating more joy in your life requires a specific set of tools. If you’re up for the challenge, gather to yourself:
GUMPTION and TENACITY ~ Think of gumption and tenacity as a sturdy pair of galoshes and gardening gloves. Cultivating Joy isn’t always easy, especially when we’re knee deep in the muck of it. Gumption and tenacity will keep you coming back, rooting deeper, going beyond the easy.
WILLINGNESS ~ Willingness is like the gardener’s sunglasses that allow you to see things from a new perspective. If growth is our goal, we need to be willing to nurture our growing pains, understanding it takes energy and effort to blossom.
VULNERABILITY ~ Vulnerability is the grace of the gardener, the understanding that not all seeds take root. That sometimes the weeds are suffocating the new buds and need to be pulled. This can be scary, letting go of the old to embrace the new. Be gentle with yourself.
LOVE ~ Love is the sun and the water and the soil ~ all the nutrients the seed of Joy needs to grow. In our cultivation of Joy, we need love most of all. Self-love through radical self-care, love of others through purposeful kindness. Love will set you free, Joy will make you blossom.
Know, Cultivating Joy flows with the seasons. There will be seasons where the soil of your soul needs to be left fallow, so next planting season, Joy can bloom with even more vitality. There will be seasons where the crop of Joy is small, but nevertheless just as precious. There will be seasons of Joy that fill your soul to bursting.
Embrace it all, for all of it is good and true and part of the process of becoming a cultivator of Joy.
Happy Cultivating.
Shannon
