- So in this exercise we're gonna be talking
about cultivating joy.
I thought joy was about having fun with my friends,
hanging out, being successful in my career,
all of the kinda external things
and I didn't realize that a lot of my makeup
and my understanding of joy was with a mind frame
that it would be brought to me by those in my lives,
that there will be people that would make my joy
a priority for them
and it was a long journey into realizing
that it was my responsibility
to make joy something that was important to me
and I don't think we often think about joy that way.
We wait for it to happen, wait for something funny to happen
we wait for someone to bring it to us
but this is a way where we can have this list
and then when things get tough,
we can have this to reference back to
and begin to bring that joy back into our own lives.
So I'm gonna be using the list format here
and I find this really easy because I mean,
you could just go on and on and on
about the things that bring you joy.
So for me I'm gonna start with a title before I do my list.
So what brings me joy
and the first thing that I always think about
is people watching.
I think being a New Yorker in general, my God,
the things you see when you're walking around
like someone being helped across the street,
watching someone, a couple in love
and you can tell they're on their third date
and it's still all new and fresh.
All of those things really bring me joy
and are just fun to me
and help me remember the easygoing parts of life
and kinda get out of my TV, social media mind frame
and just stuck in the negative parts
that are a natural part of life
but that can kinda bring us down.
Another thing that brings me a lot of joy
is when I wake up the first time my alarm goes off.
That is not often but it really makes me feel
like I prioritized my self-care
in a way where I can actually wake up on time.
This is another small thing
but when Trader Joe's has eucalyptus.
Joy.
It smells great.
I'm gonna jack up this spelling
but that's the beauty of journaling.
It's just for me.
Only every one of you guys and me
knows I can't spell eucalyptus.
I love fresh flowers.
I love when my kids laugh.
Them laughing makes me laugh
and then we just are like three crazy people laughing.
I really love really good wine, preferably red and Malbec.
I am from New York and I've said that a few times
but New York City is just, as soon as I can see the skyline,
I'm like yes, joy.
The ocean.
I actually have a meditation app that I listen to
and it brings me a lot of joy hearing that before bed.
Memes on social media innate joy.
Cuomo on CNN.
I love his dialogue with Don Lemon before they pass it off.
This is how you know I'm firmly in my 30s.
It's hilarious to me.
I stay up for that every single night.
I'm finding the joy as I'm doing this, if you don't,
just thinking about the things that make you happy,
it really changes your mood instantly.
So I'm gonna stop here
but I think this is a really good example
of how focusing on the little,
I mean, these are like really small things
that throughout the day just reflecting back on them
remind me of how much joy I get out of the time
that I spend focusing on the small things in life
like Trader Joe's for example.
That's during my errand time but tons of joy from that.
Same thing with fresh flowers.
Kids' laughter.
That's a completely free experience
and sometimes I get that even from people watching.
So sometimes I circle back and I'm like,
oh, wow, that's double joy there.
So one of the things that comes up a lot
after you finish your joy list is that was great
but how can I integrate this into my life
and so I just wanna reflect back for a second
into the pie chart and I think finding ways
that you can integrate it into your life
and be more actionable about it
helps you to again take back your power
and it's an empowering experience.
So for me, the Trader Joe's experience is in my errands
and blah, I don't really like my errands.
Remembering that during that errand time
I'm actually having joyful experiences.
So even though I don't enjoy running errands all the time,
this is an amazing time for me to be more present
to the things that do bring me joy.
Another thing is during family time
for me seeing the places that my joy shows up
that I often forget when I look at my day
and I'm overwhelmed by the amount of things
that I have going on,
remembering all the joyful things that take place in them.
Adulting time often leads to that glass of wine.
Lots of joy.
The ocean.
That's in my downtime.
Listening to my meditation app.
That also usually comes from adulting in itself.
Work leads to more time in New York City
and I love New York so this is more joy.
I think that just being honest
about there are parts of these charts that really suck
and that can be draining to our day to day lives
and our experiences but trying to change our mind frames
to being more present
to the places that joy already exists within these
helps us to change our mind frames, helps us to get back
to this is what actually makes me happy,
this is where I actually shine, this is where I feel good
and it doesn't mean acting
like these other sucky things don't exist
but we can have both and that's the important piece,
understanding that it can be sucky by five o'clock
but by 5:30 I'm looking at eucalyptus and I'm happy
and so just bringing that into your experience more
and understanding that this is all created by us.
There are people that influence it.
There are people that come in and out of it
but we are in charge of this experience here
and we're also in charge of bringing this in.
So I hope that this was helpful for you
to see how you can kind of intersect writing practices
and you can take things that you learn
from one writing practice
and bring more perspective to another and I mean,
this can lead to so many different writing prompts
but I hope that this really helps you to understand
and gain more clarity around how journaling is so expansive
and we can make it look very different
in so many different ways.