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I think about joy a lot. I don’t mean I’m obsessed with happiness or anything like that, it’s more nuanced. Joy is an energy. Joy is a life force. You can transfer joy to others, to pets, to nature, to the rest of the world. When your joy is depleted you will feel depleted. Joy is the core of our happiness engine.
How To Walk With Joy
Life is full of obstacles to our happiness. With joy inside you can skip over the hard parts with more ease. Here’s how that works. Let’s say I’m unhappy with some large aspect of my life. I can either be angry and frustrated about that, or, the flipside, I can be joyful about the adventure, even in the dark moments. It wasn’t too many weeks ago that I was suffering from a major depression as the result of several major setbacks. I was NOT okay, I was out of joy. I was beginning to lose hope, the precious metal that humans can use to replenish their joy.
Without hope, once your joy is run down, it’s very hard to recharge. Hope is the spiritual connection with a higher power, the belief that things will eventually work out and this is just a “dark period.” Like the historical moment we are going through in this country. We can either be afraid and hopeless, or we can take action to recharge and join the resistance.
Getting your monkey mind under control is probably the most important aspect of cultivating joy and hope. Your mind, your moods, can affect every molecule of your human body and every energetic thread of your spirit. We’ve got several areas in our life that we control.
Mind
Body
Spirit
Love
I made a graphic this morning to help me grasp and organize this concept.
There are a lot of levers we have to control our energy, moods, and innervoice. What you say to yourself, that’s a conversation you can easily take charge of. What you put into your body, how much clean water you drink, and how much deep sleep you get, all somewhat within your control.
Without going to deep into the psychological, here’s the simple version: Your joy, your walk of life, is up to you. In this role as a cashier, I’ve learned to reset myself constantly. Recenter and find the blessing in being of service to others 1,000 times a day. The Kindness Meditation works well, but there’s more to it. It’s how you move through the world, how you perceive your journey, and how you can do things to rebalance and maintain your energy, mood, and inner voices to support your JOY.
I am part of the “JOY TRIBE.” We see each other across the store. The Joy in me sees and appreciates the joy in you. Namasté.
As I continuously learn to walk with joy, I see the world as a more hopeful place. Even as things, at this very moment, are not going the what I had hoped or planned, I can be delighted in the experience of life. In the ups and downs. I can manage some of the elements, but there’s a lot around us we cannot change. Learn the difference.
The serenity prayer makes a fantastic recentering mantra when I need to bring myself back into alignment with my highest purpose and goals.
God, grant the the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change (the past)
The courage to change the things I can (agency and future)
And the wisdom to know the difference.
We have to stay rooted in the present moment if we’re going to manage our lives. Prompts into the past and future are okay, just don’t dwell or drown there. Keep swimming forward.
I’m glad you are here, how is *your* day going!
[Listen to the Deep Dive explore the concepts of The Happy Cashier.]
The hope I see in others
becomes the hope I have for myself,
my life, and my own journey.
– The Happy Cashier
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ALT: Botisatva’s Bookshelf | The Happy Cashier Podcast
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