Taking in Joy
Last week, I
wrote about seeing the good, this week I’d like you to begin the practice of
taking it in.
You’d be
surprised, or maybe not to find that we internalize the negative much more
readily than we do the positive.
We tend to
gravitate to the news about a fallen star, a lost child, or a politician gone
rouge. Rarely do we get excited when we hear about a child who is at home with
their family, or a celebrity working to end poverty.
Even when
the good news hits home, we are afraid to get “too” happy fearing that we might
lose our moment of joy.
Because we
have learned to be afraid of being too happy we must unlearn the behavior and
replace it with one that is more beneficial and helpful to our well-being.
Every day we have the opportunity to
see the joy that life offers us. We are too busy, too tired, or too caught up
in our fears to see what is really real.
Yesterday, when
I went out to get the newspaper, I noticed something I had not seen before.
Tiny purple flowers were growing across my lawn. I smiled as I remembered the
line from the book The Color Purple. “If
you see the color purple in nature and don’t feel something, God gets pissed,”
the writer Alice Walker wrote.
I stopped,
noticed and then decided to go even further. I went out across our lawn and
picked the flowers. They were beautiful. I wondered why I had never seen them
before and realized that they were most likely seasonal but I had not bothered
to notice.
I brought in
a handful of the flowers and then wrapped them in a ribbon. When I took the
newspaper to my sister Christine, I handed her the flowers and was rewarded
with the biggest smile.
This week, I’d
like you to notice the things you have not seen before and then I want you to
go a step further; bring the joy of the newness inside you. It may be collecting
flowers or collecting smiles.
·
Make a mental or written note of the
good stories you hear.
·
Look at your own life and think of
the good you have done for others.
·
Think of the good you have done for
yourself
·
Take notice of the beauty in nature
and look more closely.
·
Pay attention to the joy that is
around you and take it in.
This week and everyone that follows,
pay more attention to the good, the joy, the love, the light than you do to
things that are not.
As you begin
to see and appreciate the joy that is around you, you will create more in the
Universe.
Be you, be well, be joy
Bertice Berry, PhD.
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