Everyday Inspiration: The Power of Joy
I’ve recently learned how to be happier and it all started with a bout of pure insanity.
Have you seen the amount of new diets lately? Whether you choose the Flexitarian, Dash or Volumetric, there is a host of choices to fend off whatever targeted food is your current enemy of choice. Wheat, corn, soy, dairy, legumes, rice, and shadow veggies, are just the beginning. It seems everything you read tells you that the innocent bean you used to enjoy now wields destructive power.
Well I recently jumped on the Paleo Diet bandwagon for 6 weeks. I even wrote a blog post about it. But, on this eating plan, I went into a semiconscious fog complete with moments of irritability, sadness, and, in the end, turned up with Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Ironically this all lead me right into the very doctor’s office I was trying to avoid!
What was going on here!? FEAR.
We are all so well versed in the state of being fearful that new waves of ‘hype’ don’t daunt us anymore. We jump from one bandwagon to the next expecting the bad hype to be true for our lives, condition, and world. We have been trained to believe we must protect ourselves from the world AND WHAT IS IN IT. We prepare ourselves for the next impending blow. We have to do it right or IT will win.
This is draining us and taking away our quality of life.
We are talking about choices here. Everyday life choices that have been slowly draining the joy out of our lives.
How many times have you signed your kids up for an activity out of fear that they would be missing out, gaining a disadvantage, or ending up feeling lonely? Versus out of LOVE for the actual activity.
How many times DON’T you wear an item of clothing out of fear of not fitting in or being ridiculed versus out of love for the item and the way it makes you look/feel?
How often do you call your mother out of fear of getting reprimanded or being viewed as bad, versus out of a loving connection?
How often do you eat a salad or seaweed cracker out of fear you have to, when what you really want is a steak.
“That’s what life is. It’s just this ongoing never-ending vacation adventure, you see. You can’t get it wrong and you never get it done – we recommend you have as much fun as you can along the way.” – Esther Hicks
I’ve realized the cost was quite simply too high. Fear was ruling my choices and, therefore, my peace of mind. I decided to plug back into my joy. The joy I had lost through making choices out of fear. I had to become conscious with each decision, was I doing this out of fear or Love?
Sound easy?
Aligning with your JOY will be the hardest choice you will consistently undergo because so many of our everyday actions get decided unconsciously without really examining why. So many of us make decisions out of fear that it has become commonplace. How does this affect us? Our families? Our work? Our world?
It was a huge realization that so many choices were fear-based. No wonder I wasn’t enjoying eating anymore. I had to wake up and admit to the programming I had been accepting. I was finally willing to become aware that my so-called problems with wheat and soy were due to my believing in the hype.
You may even choose happy activities out of fear of becoming unhappy. Either way, you become enslaved into being part of an unstable, condemning world. Before long your decisions are based on surviving and not enjoying your life.
When I replaced my actions with love, something astounding came as a by-product: JOY. I decided that this was the only thing worth plugging into and, as a result, would benefit everyone around me. A joyful me was surely better than this semiconscious crabby seaweed eater!
Ask yourself, can you say Hello to a stranger without fear they may not reciprocate? Doing it because you simply yearn to make the connection? Can you drive on the road carefully because you love yourself and care for the welfare of those around you, rather than fearing an accident, getting a ticket or being late?
When you choose out of Love, you do so because of the joy it gives YOU. This allows you the opportunity to enjoy the journey more rather than looking around your shoulder for the laundry list of horrible things that could happen. This frees up your potential to say Yes to the things you really want to do.
After all, isn’t the point of life to enjoy the journey? Make the destination JOY and see your life change.
Are you Ready?
As you take each step I will be there reminding you of your Magnificence, and I will continue to do so, until you are able to see it in yourself. © Copyright. Jennifer Annenberg Productions. 2013. All Rights Reserved. This publication may not be reproduced under any circumstances without the written consent of Jennifer Annenberg.
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