100 Days of Joy!

Hello My Beauties,

Today is Day 100 of my Joy Journal challenge! 

As you may recall, I wrote a blog post March 1st, 2016 called Journal for Joy:

“What do you think it would do for you—your heart, your soul, your psyche—to take a few minutes of each day and contemplate what brings you joy and then to act on it, to bring positive, loving attention to it by writing it down? …starting today, March 1st, for 100 days I am going to be Journaling for Joy. I’ll keep you all posted as to what this act of writing down my joy does for me, to me.”

Whoop whoop!  I made it!  If any of you joined me, so did YOU!  

Well done!!! AND, let’s keep Journaling for Joy.

I’ve enjoyed the process so much I find I’m not ready to stop my Joy Journal. I like that I did something daily for 100 days. That, in and of itself, is quite an accomplishment ~ big hug, high five, pat on the back. AND I like how I feel when I focus my attention on JOY, even if it is only for a few moments each day.

What have I learned from this experience? That joy really is there if I just take the time to look for it.  Even more beautiful?  I now know the more I focus on what brings me joy, the more joy I feel.

I was talking with my sister yesterday, and as I seem to always come back to, we spoke about the little things in life and how they make all the difference in our days.

And so, it was no real surprise to me that when I looked back over my 100 days of Joy, the little things are what ended up on the page:

• My run/walk with my girlfriend for our lunch break
• Daisies dancing in the wind beside the highway
• A foggy morning and the quiet before the day awakens
• Talking with my friends and family, especially my son
• Hot Red Rooibos tea first thing in the morning
• Journaling
• Birdsong
• Movies where the characters get their butts kicked and yet, keep going. The triumph is that they did survive and in the surviving, have made the world a better place
• TGIFs
• The rise of the full moon the night before and watching it set in the early dawn
• Eating popcorn covered with butter and Cholula ~ absolute decadence
• Saying ‘yes,’ so I can say ‘no, thank you’
• Danielle LaPorte’s Ayurvedic candles
• Listening to Rob Bell’s podcast, the Rob Cast
• Music
• Colored pens
• Having ‘a moment’ and ‘what a difference a day makes’ ~ a lovely reminder that this too shall pass and that I have tons to be grateful for
• Stepping beyond my occasional red fingernail polish and embracing colors like navy blue, and gray, and even turquoise ~ so fun!
• Danielle LaPorte’s #truthbombs
• Garage saling ~ I LOVE going garage saling with my man and drinking my tea as we peruse the treasures someone else is letting go of
• Writing to you

If you kept a Joy Journal, please, let me know in the comments section below how the process has been for you, the things you’ve found that bring you joy. And, call even more joy into your being until you are full to bursting with it.

This world needs all the joy it can get. We each need all the joy we can find ~ and part of that is recognizing the joy we already have. Intention, focus, gratitude….

The beauty? JOY GROWS MORE JOY.

You know what I mean. When you see someone smile, you smile. When you hear someone laugh, a spark of joy ignites within you. Just like kindness, joy spreads.

So, I challenge myself, and I challenge you ~ be the pebble of joy in the still pond and allow the ripples of joy to expand beyond your being into the world.

Blessings always and in all ways.

IN JOY,

Shannon

Joy makes us BLOOM!