hello friends,
Almost everything in life is better when we can smile. If nothing is going your way, but your heart is smiling, life is good. And if you have every success in the world, but can’t find a reason to smile, then nothing feels great. The ability to be with whatever is and maintain enough lightness to smile is a super power. A super power I used to think a person was born with. And I wasn’t one of those people.
But, I was wrong. Not about the capacity to smile being a super power, but about it being something you have to be born with. Learning to find joy in spite of whatever else if going on in life is a skill. A skill that all of us can learn.
The world’s dominant message is that happiness will come if we do, achieve or buy the right thing. I’m not saying that doing things, achieving goals, or buying something is antithetical to happiness. It’s simply that it’s mostly irrelevant. Each of us knows this on some foundational level because we’ve all experienced it. You thought you’d feel fantastic because you finally went on that dream trip, achieved that lofty goal, or bought the thing you always wanted…and you felt meh, maybe in the moment it was happening and definitely a few days or weeks later.
Instead of questioning the link between a genuine sense of joyfulness and all that doing, achieving and buying, for years I listened to the voices that explained that what I really really needed to feel happy was a more exotic trip, a grander goal, and more expensive stuff.
You see the cycle, and you know how it repeats itself, over and over. Unless we interrupt it.
This practice of cultivating everyday joyfulness isn’t grand, but it’s powerful and a bit radical. Powerful because if you do it, you’ll find that you not only spend more time in relaxed contentment, but you’ll also return to that way of being more quickly when life throws a curve ball. Radical because it doesn’t require you to spend money or adopt someone else’s point of view. This practice requires nothing beyond a commitment to pay attention and the discipline to allow whatever sparks happiness to sink in. The power lies in small, seemingly insignificant, everyday moments. The moments we tend to ignore while they’re happening and forget when they’re over. Instead of not noticing those sparks of joyfulness, you engage your innate capacity to connect to an expansive source of joy every single day.
So, here’s the practice:
(1) Pay attention to everything that makes you smile, the smaller and sillier the better. If you experimented with feeling tones last week, this practice will build nicely on that. If you didn’t, no worries. This step is simple: intentionally spend a few days paying attention to what you find pleasant. Ideally, you’ll pick a timeframe with enough days to capture your normal routine. The first day is a learning day. If you only notice one thing because you had a hard time remembering to remember, that’s completely normal. By the second or third day, though, you’ll probably relax into the habit of noticing. Noticing how much you enjoy that first sip of coffee or putting on pajamas at the end of a long day. It may be something surprising, like wiping the kitchen counter or it might be more obvious, like a hot shower. When I did this step, I realized that I really do like making the bed in the morning, the feel of smooth sheets, the fun of propping pillows, the sense of a tidy room. Bed making may not be one of your things, but I suspect that you’ll have a few fun surprises, too.
(2) Make your list. It’s important that the things you choose are a routine part of your life. This is the opposite of a bucket list. You don’t want to list something that only happens once in a blue moon, you want to focus on the things that you already do regularly. When I first started this practice, I limited myself to five things so that I could focus on Step 3 (below), but now that I’m more comfortable with the process, I’m growing the list. Pick at least three things so that you have plenty of chances to practice, and if you feel like a list of fifteen, go for it! My five things are: putting on lotion in the morning, making my bed, rolling out my yoga mat, walking in the park, and sipping my evening cup of tea. This list couldn’t be more banal, but let me tell you when you can find joy in the quotidian you have a super power.
(3) Let that spark of joy sink in. Every step matters, but this one matters most. In some ways, it’s the easiest step because you don’t have to do anything, but not-doing may make it challenging if you’ve been living in your head for a long time. If this is hard for you, and it was for me, try slowing down every time you encounter a spark of joy from doing something on your list. I literally counted to ten, gently keeping my awareness focused on that feeling of contentment for longer than was normal or even comfortable. (Note: I kept up the counting practice only for a few weeks. It’s pretty automatic now.) Don’t think effort, think allow. It’s about seeing with new eyes, rather than seeing new things.
Okay, that’s it for this week. I hope that if you do try out this practice, you find it to be as powerful as I do. Take gentle care of yourselves!
warmly,
alison
