Living Joyfully
Living Joyfully
Joy seems to be a step beyond happiness. Happiness is a sort of atmosphere you can live in sometimes when you are lucky. Joy is a light that fills you with hope and faith and love. Adele Rogers St. John’s.
I just love it when you wake up with a song in your heart and a feeling of peace and joy that transcends your body and soul. Living In joy has become essential to me. Of course it is easy when I wake up in my happy place and I see a beautiful view, but no matter where I awake, no matter how I feel, I make a choice as soon as my feet hit the floor to be happy. I try to choose joy every day. Some days are definitely harder and more fleeting. It definitely is a choice. Of course it is difficult to remain there 24/7, but It does get easier.
I define happiness as a result of external circumstances. While internal joy brings internal peace. You could be happy and not be at peace and vice versa you could be at peace and not be happy. However, when you are at peace and are truly happy you are in a state of ecstatic joy. You will feel gratitude surging through your veins and you feel like rejoicing.
Our world has made it difficult to find joy due to modern day stresses and resulting anxiety. People rely on alcohol, drugs, food or even binge watching TV to bring moments of happiness but at the best these activities provide distraction. They may bring fleeting moments of happiness but they do not help us to cultivate internal joy.
The more you trust your true self the less you have to look for what brings you happiness. How do you move to a more joyful life? It’s not hard. You remove the negativity. You stop complaining about the weather. You stop complaining about other people. You stop complaining about food. You change your complaining to gratitude.
The second step is to stop worrying and have faith. Stop worrying about what people will think. Stop worrying about gossip. Stop trying to be perfect. Stop worrying when the second shoe is going to drop. Stop worrying that nothing will work out and have faith that it will all work out.
When you complain, you’re negative past comes into the present. When you worry, you’re negative future comes into the present. Peace in your heart is found when you remove the negativing and live in the joy of the moment.
To live at a place of peace and acceptance can prove to be very challenging so I also needed help from the Holy Spirit through prayer and meditation. This is step three, seek help from the Holy Spirit. After you feel the peace of the Holy Spirit in your heart you will not want to go back. Paul wrote about Joy and Peace as characteristics of the Fruit of the Spirit. We all have a choice; we can reject the chaos of the world and choose God’s Peace. I believe peace and joy are gifts from the Holy Spirit available to everyone.
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