When I coach people who lack self-awareness they often tell me they have difficulty experiencing joy in their lives. Joy is a wonderful concept which I define as experiencing pure bliss and contentment. Joy is also complex in that we could not experience it if we did not also experience pain. A life of perpetual joy would soon begin to feel bland, so we need the ups and downs that come with everyday experience.
How do you define joy? Joy can be that moment at which you feel complete happiness and want for nothing else. It can be gazing into someone’s eyes whom you love or doing something that means a lot to you. Joy is what we experience when we work through difficulties and as we let go of the things that bring us down. Here’s what some smart people have to say about the matter:
Pearl S. Buck:
The secret of joy in work is contained in one word – excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.
Audre Lorde:
The sharing of joy, whether physical, emotional, psychic, or intellectual, forms a bridge between the sharers which can be the basis for understanding much of what is not shared between them, and lessens the threat of their difference.
Kahlil Gibran:
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
Feeling joy in life arises from doing the work necessary to heal your hurts and learning how to manage your emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. It requires deliberate and continuous effort, but the rewards are wonderful.
What will you do to develop self-awareness and experience joy in life?
Cheers,
Guy