But if I'm open to experiencing joy, it finds me. To witness pure beauty, to marvel at it and to understand its sacredness, gives me joy. It has been a soundtrack to this current period in my life. She has cancer and is uncertain how long she will be around for, but I still feel Joy, despite the sorrow. I found my joy in the outskirts of alcoholism (early sobriety), where the forest swamps cease and the valleys enfold. Enjoy the Community and Recovery Benefits After nearly 25 years together and 17 years of marriage I feel blessed to have this lady in my life and love her more than ever and just so happy that she loves me, still. One practice I've developed to access this blessed gift is to close my eyes 3-4 times a day and sit in silence for 5 minutes or so, and be filled with love and joy. I find it one of life's funny little mysteries that we rarely take the time to stop and consider what makes us happy and where we find joy. It's the smell of cooking toast that joyously reminds me of calm quiet times in my grandmothers kitchen as a 10 year old when life was simpler. Subscribe to The Red Hand Files Like you, I live near the sea, and I often walk in the strand and think about how I might find joy in the place between the tides rather than the desert of the sand dunes and the depths of the open ocean. So I find joy in coming back to a love that never ceases and is never out of view or reach rather than reaching and squeezing out the extreme and unsustainable high of swinging from extreme isolation to extreme connection. As I grow stronger, healthier, more connected to a loving God, I find that all my feelings, when given a place to be, are not so loud and extreme anymore. I have found, like you, that joy is a practiced action in my life, but like you I struggle to find it, practice it, believe it, especially when I hold myself as so lucky and safe in such a conflict-filled world. That's why I believe that everyone, diagnosed or not, is on such a spectrum.I can find joy on my own or in groups. This might change by the minute, hour or day. Imagine if you could link each possible emotion to a recording console and start each day on the lowest setting. Then joy goes elsewhere for a while, but always creeps up on me with a little tap on the shoulder saying, "Here I Am - See I won't forsake you". Joy is doing the dishes to an album you thought you’d overplayed and finding it makes you feel just like it did the first few times; joy is the feeling of finally uncovering, both predictably and truly unexpectedly, another one of the mysteries we get to experience in our world.The opportunity to interact with people at their most authentic - dealing with whatever life has thrown at them and trying to make sense of it all gives me joy.Meanwhile, this fuels me and calms me for the not so simple and uncomplicated relationship with the adolescents in the house.It can visit when I see the asparagus popping up through the dirt in my vege patch, when my dog looks deeply into my eyes and I know what he's saying, when I'm outside and it's very windy and I feel like I might be in a movie with a swelling soundtrack.As the day proceeded I did wordlessly wonder where and how this gift had arrived.Joy is the simplicity oforangea sun warmed pavement marmite (apologies but vegemite is no good)a silver birchthe word collapse to list just a fewat the right time in the right frame of mindor the spells don't workI walked back to my hotel across the frosty grass outside the Bundestag filled with euphoria, with joy and joy that I could feel joy.' and then actively deciding to work on the answer, which was to go home to my rural community and make a life there. I do believe, that we can do a lot to prepare the ground for love, for joy. Watching the dancers, together with the orchestra and the audience, bring something of immense beauty into existence - with all their heart and every cell of their being and their discipline, which dominates every part of their lives. I find joy in my almost adult children singing along to music, their dancing, their art, their laughter. With time, this began to alter my perspective on life, and I began to find a new gratitude. I love this one, because it’s absolutely true! Accepting the possibility of joy, not fending it off with preconceptions and pessimism, just remaining aware that joy is one of the gifts of the world that becomes available when we can live with open hearts. Those moments where you get a tiny glimpse of everything being connected. Fresh air, garden, fruits and incredible dinners and characters.I get to relive that joy everyday by trying to emulate her happiness, warmth, love and care with my own children and our dog Roxy and previous dog Bowie at our home and beloved garden in the country.Someone, something blows a gentle wind in my face and I fall back into a state of melancholy, and this lasts for more than a moment.You will feel accomplished after this practice.Sometimes we drift on glass, sometimes we work uphill , tack by tack to windward.Like a muscle to be strengthened we practice opening up our atoms and letting joy IN!!There's a reliable 'ping' of joy every time I remember to be grateful that I even got to live at all.When I forget to look for joy, eventually the pain of being human becomes strong enough to remind me that the only certainty in life is death.I find my joy in going back to basics. Watching the shadows of the curious piwakawaka swooping towards me only to pull out at the last moment spurred a chuckle. Whether you live in the Alhambra or an alleyway, nobody is immune to pain and heartache, and so everybody has the chance to help and be helped in their own special way. My line of work - mental health - exposes me to a lot of loss, be it of family members or friends, independence, the capacity to think, or to make one's own decisions. In that way, we are joined, and so joyful. I try to find joy in looking around me when I walk through the city, to appreciate the amazing friends and family that I have, every lyric/song/show that I play make me feel like heaven (and hell).And playing with my dog, that´s just pure bliss. Yesterday, it was the question 'what makes you feel a worthy (or on the other hand unworthy?) person? And to use these little moments for giving thanks for being alive! Joy is remembering i am nature, a singular being in our beautiful interdependent world.Joy is love, love is joy, a full heart takes understanding and maybe years, but i got there eventually.Or, obviously, the joy of going to see a gig, the communion in music.In my experience, joy is about feeling a bond with the rest of the world.For some time I though I was most happy when I was sad, melancholic.I'm reminded of the saying that "God is ultimately impersonal".So, back to the question, what brings me joy?That isn’t just the fleeting happiness that comes with certain moments—it’s rather a steady state, a constant undercurrent in my life.It was my dearest wish but life had other plans for me.When I can remember, I find joy there, too.Try to keep your life very simple and still, find peace with yourself and even sometimes find the happiness and joy in your wife's eyes. Similar articles I have to pay attention, though, because joy is elusive and I’ll miss it. Most of my life, I thought Joy was just supposed to come to me and that it wasn’t a two way street. I find joy on top of a mountain or hill and seeing the beauty around me By braving discomfort in the name of new experience. Specially with good friends or family. I personally find joy when around the dinner table. Because I’d rather that, than never really knowing my dad.I suppose there’s been a certain amount of joy in writing this, because I’ve never really spoken about it before. Our lives mean something important - I don’t know what - but they do, I’m certain of it. As a poet, my work seems to move between anguish and joy. I would say the following about joy. Life can be that simple apparently. The smell of sea fog on a rare balmy morning here in Dunedin, New Zealand or the smell of satisfaction of my freshly mown lawns, that is a pure unadulterated smug smell of joy.For me, you can enjoy lots of things that are unrewarding - a silly comedy on TV for example.I questioned myself so many times, how will I explain concepts of ‘genetic risk’ and ‘heredity’ to him, how to articulate transparency in letting a future partner know there could be a ‘risk’ to have a child.Picturing you in that ride also brings me the giggling kind of joy!I think you have to be always vigilant and welcoming for when the joys of life reveal themselves to you.If Nick asked all of us a question! Dancing sober also sometimes brings this euphoric, transcendental joy. If joy is a feeling within us, it is also constructed from the body, from the whole of what we think of as us, our experiences up to that point. These moments remain unrecorded anywhere but in my memory, private and unexpressed but etched on my soul as three letters J O Y. To seek joy and know it is innately personal, maybe you, Nick, experience it in entirely different ways from me. Happiness is most often circumstantial; joy is the deep well. Joy finds me when I surrender to the moment. Why do you think that joy is so much more visceral in amongst pain and loss? Since being young, I have always listened to music. I wanted to be part of it, so I volunteer my time to help in the Walled Garden. I perform improv comedy, my creativity is fleeting, purely in the moment. I find myself most authentically joyful when I'm creative. When my expectation rises to meet my desire, they join in concert with one another and joy erupts from that harmony.If expectation is flat or sharp of my desire...I need more practice.Harmony of desire and expectation is joy.I am joy. Then I found joy without having to go the ‘wrong’ way. Watching and loving her courage and resolve in the face of a diagnosis of serious life-long illness. I get joy in all sorts of places, but mainly my family. I hug my daugther and remember to enjoy, ask and be grateful for her embrace. It makes me happy when I can see him again as he was and sad when he lieves behinde his eyes. Day Balanced Non‑Vegetarian Indian Meal Plan (Fitness & Weight Management) But, recognising what is right in front of me brings me that lightness in my heart and I become a nicer person to all I meet. Since then, I feel a lot happier in life, as if working on my bad habits cleared up the sky to let the sun shine on me in a little more regular way.And that’s basically what the Ancient Greeks thought, and what Roman philosophers thought, and what a lot of religions think. With that meandering set-up, I do have one memory of joy I can still vividly feel. I gain joy from new socks, old pants and second hand cardigans, fiver left in the top pocket from the previous owner.I have heard you use the metaphor of your lovely song’s leaping frogs talking about joy in interviews.It’s up there with love in terms of its (dare I say it) eternal value.Joy.And then when people want to buy my work and have it in their homes, also joy!An important teacher in my life encouraged me to lower my expectations; to find joy in small, even tiny things.I'll never forget it, even if looking back, it now feels slightly off-kilter, as if in a dream.But you need to give it a vessel, a means of transport, so that you can bring this thing that exists outside of you to the inside.I’m invisible to the outside gaze and I’m solely focused on my plants while being a guest in another world which is all around me for too short a time, which I love. My friends all have families of their own now, and I see most of them once a year, if I'm lucky, and never all at the same time. I long for the unbridled fun I used to have with my friends, on a random Wednesday night, at the open mic night, in a basement pub where there'd be a pint in hand until 3am, only to be up and at work for 7. As a single woman in her 40's, I often look back on the days of old and wonder if I'll ever have that kind of joy again. In my case, what I’m searching for now is a more enduring kind of joy, dismissing fleetingness and revealing the true nature of things. So I agree with you in that joy is something that we practise; it’s an action, like a stretching movement towards our feet, as in yoga. Sun Salutation Breakdown If I were to answer the question in a straightforward way, I could say there are many things that bring me joy, like being with my family, writing, being immersed in nature, creating art, but what if I looked at all those things from the perspective of joy as a verb? This existence is such a beautiful mystery that we'll never truly be able to unravel.Even in hard times (of which I have had, and will continue to have, plenty) this present moment is beautiful.That's where I find my joy. To know that we are all feeling beings, to recognize that we are all feeling different things at one singular point in time- I take that knowledge and attempt to spread as much joy as I possibly can to those around me. Other times, it means solo hiking in the mountains to reconnect to that first feeling of pure joy. Sharing time together in person, honestly being our flawed selves, feeling seen and heard and loved anyway. It is much slower and more difficult than I expected, but it’s consistent… The “go beyond your limits” attitude is inspiring in tough times, forcing positive adaptation in the face of adversity. What I love about shonen anime – even after all these years – is this consistent pursuit of being better. Unfortunately, the average human body does not operate at as a manga/comicbook… The muscles of real people actually need rest. If you remember he also said he kept pushing no matter what and when he thought to take a day off he shruged the idea off and went at it Joy extends life, it is internal and broadens and extends experiences. Sometimes I find her after, on my walk home, smelling like chlorine and enjoying the cool breeze on my wet hair.But that isn't enough. I really hope to see you live someday! I know I always find live music joyous and that includes yours, thank-you.However, last weekend I experienced the most wonderful, emotion inducing and surprising joy of my life.I attended the Broken Heel Festival in Broken Hill Victoria. Some days it's washing dishes while listening to blonde and dancing with it brings me joy—something that simple and maybe that stupid! I can't say I remember feeling joy in a particular moment, but I can say I've felt happy. It feels like we're always chasing after things that are supposed to bring us joy, rather than stopping to realize that joy is often right beside us in the smallest of moments. There have been times in my life, where in the wake of trauma and tragedy I was struck from joy in connecting with my personal values namely love and connection with those whom I feel most see me the most. And I realise that in writing this response to you, the how is also by being present in the moment. Exercising life’s passions and letting go of those that do not serve us. It’s floating in a salty ocean and meeting the smile of a loved one. Linked to optimism and hope, it’s pushing for change and blooming through growth. I find joy in the aftermaths, collapsed in a heap, after “running up that hill” revelling in all I’ve learnt and gained. I look at this picture and mourn us both for a moment. My first great loss, now decades in the past and just yesterday. Then I made a point to really look at each picture as I dusted it and over time this has become a weekly gratitude practice for me.I pick up the nearest picture, my mother, taken from this world too soon and without warning. A deer walking alongside me on my morning walk. Or do a small kindness such as help an old lady put her groceries in her car, tell a stranger on the street they look fantastic today and keep walking or buy a homeless person a coffee. I recently came to appreciate the joy of walking in New York City. In each of these deliberate acts, I sought joy but to no avail. I cook, I read, I write, I photograph, I listen to music, I watch old films on my laptop, and I meditate. My health gives me pure joy in her own rickety wobbly way. It is by no means always within reach, but if it were or survived captivity, it would cease to be joy.Finding joy in walking 630 miles, along the southwest coastal path.A pilgrimage to my daughter Charlotte who left this world in 2019, age 19.Practicing meditation has brought me more joy than my new computer, watch, phone, car, etc.I cannot articulate the practice of joy better than R.Just recently we lost a beautiful soul and a great mountaineer Archil, who was taken by lightning in the mountains, keeping him forever in as their offspring ...Perhaps in seeing someone I love that I never thought I'd see again.Isn’t that what life’s all about?Unfortunately, the average human body does not operate at as a manga/comicbook… The muscles of real people actually need rest. Through sadness and disappointment, with heartache and despair, I find joy all around me. And I just focus on silly little things around myself and just hope that the next 24 hours will be a better day. Otherwise, this life would be really boring! The leaves are dry, but the roots are fighting to grow back.I personally can find joy in everything. It's a trait that life on earth has given us—not just us humans but all the living things. Downward-Facing Dog (Adho Mukha Svanasana) As for weight loss… it’s nuts, but diet’s going to be your greatest ally here! 3 days a week, one day rest inbetween, is a classic (and thus, proven) workout schedule so that’s great! Friday, Sunday, Tuesday/Wednesday are all rests. Going to go for Thurs, Sat, Monday. 2) Love the idea of both a Max Friday and a “deload” Friday Not being able to enjoy their company and knowing how much I miss them the best way I can think of honouring them is to make the most of the life that I have knowing that it won't last forever (no matter how much I wish it would). Mid-morning on a crisp spring day, sitting alone on the backdoor step, with the sun warming my face. I find joy in both the simple and complex. And much can never be redeemed.Still, life has some possibility left. As Mary Olivier says “joy is not made to be a crumb”. The fullness of it all, if we allow ourselves to feel it. Ours is to come to terms with joy as the partner to sadness and loss.It has been an enduring, most courageous journey to arrive where I began, a full circle of returning… like the 10 bulls of Zen…So grateful to meet all those painful wounds that got in the way of simply feeling joy.For me, joyful moments have come from being able to share life with another person deeply.Whether it’s a morning walk, sitting in a sunlit room, or simply taking a deep breath, those still moments give me time to reflect and reset.I can pinpoint a lot of 'things' that give me joy.I find joy sitting with a cool beverage just watching my bees come and go.Or finally, I might find joy when someone tells me "thank you" when I didn't expect it.I feel like I could disappear from the room, like I'm transparent, a ghost, a privileged, silent and ecstatic witness.This is what I call « creating a Berlin family ». I find joy in the day to day of my existence and of those around me. I also work with spreadsheets (which is not exactly a joy!) but i reckon you should make a list of all the joys you receive and how often people find those joys and post where the joy hits most (i assume this task would not be joyful to do, but interesting) I had to think about the definition of joy, I have a family that provides a certain type of joy that only a family can (two daughters and a partner i love). Finding joy is my debt to them, and to all the people who've put me here. This is a hard decision to make and one that breeds feelings of nervousness and sadness within me; not knowing how I will "cope" without my usual performance schedules (and applause). For many different reasons, more recently I am moving towards music management and away from full-time performing. I am a full-time professional musician. As a woman of 64, who has been in a semi permanent state of existential crisis most of my adult life, I am not sure Joy can be sought. But most of all nithing gives me greater joy than when my kids laugho I find it in the simplest things. Finding joy is very difficult as you state. We sense its arrival, we feel it, we share it, we form bonds through these connections. I started enjoying simple things again, like a walk by the river, a bicycle ride, reading (does not matter if it was Kierkegaard or a silly monkey book for my 4 years old daughter), just gazing at the window, touching cold water. This will sound trite and cheesy but there is really no greater joy than seeing a loved one - friend or family - smile. Probably because these sounds are made of many unpredicted elements and unexpected stories brought together by life itself in a special combination making this particular evanescent time turned into a poetic of life possibilities. In a life made of rational productivity it has become a special pleasure to open boxes of time. If I could bottle a feeling, these are the feelings I would choose. I find my joy in paying attention to the little things that make up life. Sometimes I find joy in absolutely nothing. I take joy in the simplest of things and the purest joy that warms my heart is always free. It is of course fleeting and it is gifted upon us when we stop to breathe and rest from the day to day struggle only to find the struggle itself is the joyous path. Getting a big hug from my son, when he comes to visit.But my number one happens on wet - ideally still raining - Sunday mornings, I get up earlier than everyone else and head downstairs into the still silence. With ups and downs, sometimes very high and sometimes very deep an everything inbetween. I’ve never seriously contemplated asking a question. ” into the darkness, and then more voices speak from the shadows, asking the kinds of questions that are reserved for secret sacred spaces such as this one. First of all refusing my wife's offer to come with me, so she could relax after work, this gesture from me made me happy, then playing hand scanner bingo when I scanned my club card. I thought about your question all the way round tescos tonight. It’s all been a distraction from what my body and soul really needed, and within that empty space I have had the first real chance to find myself and to find joy. I filled my life with new shiny things, a busy schedule, and being around large groups with lots of drinks and drugs. When she comes running toward me with her tail wagging, ears flapping, ball in her mouth, making funny sounds, I am happy. She has just lost her former owner, and at times I can see that she’s a little sad, but mostly she is in a good mood. The difficulty is not in finding answers to that question, but whén to find the answers. As I am pondering this question I am in a good mood, sitting at my kitchen table in my french house, with my pets around, after just having finished a nice (not fabulous, but good enough) lunch. “Things won are done, joy’s soul lies in the doing.”- William Shakespeare I find joy in music and finding my own interpretation of a song. I see joy in watching people hold hands; children, squealing, and play yards; seeing people reunite at airports. I find joy in listening to the birds in the morning. Most of us fans probably struggle with day to day life , making ends meet etc. And am so often was reminded how many people fear the presence of their own military let alone a hostile foreign entity, while I am free to feel only a surge of patriotic pride and security. And I know that the day could come when all I want in the world is to be in a room with him--watching him read a book that delights him. This is right here to be savored at any moment. Problems to solve, the things I must change, the worries of the day, the annoyances at all that is not as I want it to be. One hundred percent guaranteed and uncomplicated joy? All these things bring me fulfilment, satisfaction and diversion in many dimensions. So yes, Joy is the affirmation of life. Wading through this hopelessness and sense of meaninglessness, of impossibility, we exit at various points, exits we carve out ourselves, to find the light of joy. For me, that light appears in the form of original works of art, low and high, big and small, the affirmation of which isoceanic in the magnitude of its influence, and testament to being alive. Having time and motivation to care adequatly for that place was a joy.If we accept that this does not come in large gaudily wrapped packages but in something more subtle, we can find joy, hidden in plain sight, a sparkling magical wonder to behold.As I mentioned before, I share my musical life with my bandmates, and they inspire me no end.I could have trudged trough the park with my head down buried in sorrow but I thought you know what, it is a beautiful morning.Despite being raised by catholics, married to a catholic and having two children who are catholics, I have mostly avoided organised religion but at that moment I felt something so spiritual and so out of this world that it's impossible to put into words.I always seem to have joyful moments in nature.Eating my favourite soup on a cold winter’s day.When we allow ourselves to feel, when we roam through dark places, we come to see a kaleidoscope of emotions that we would not have seen otherwise.It was a Saturday morning and I was walking home from the store with a cart full of staples. At 37 I finally feel like I am sort of becoming an actual adult. I have also found joy to be quite an elusive thing. Christ is likely the only path to joy. I’m a believer and can glimpse briefly, without convincing, a sign of joy. Recently when feeling very sad and anxious I started thinking about all the creatures in the sea, in the deep sea, just existing while I’m panicking in bed. Stop always thinking about tomorrow, you will miss the joy of today. More than that and happy to add to the genius shitshow of joy which will now be blissfully heading your way. So I’m listening to it and laughing and thinking that maybe it’s all just some glorious coincidence.ISo then I’m thinking about joy. As a recovering workaholic, I've learned to accept joy, without needing permission and while feeling worthy of it.If you don’t know, describe your typical meals in a day from waking up to sleeping so I can estimate.I SO wanted to come up with a brilliantly written response to your question.Even the connection we find with an artist whilst listening to a piece of music or beholding a portrayal of art that moves us from within, in the moment.Dogs are joyful almost all the time, I suspect wild birds are joyful a lot of the time.But its mostly in little moments although it can be in anything and everything..I find Joy in focusing on the smallest things that are in my every day life. But when it was time to go and we started dancing, that’s when the fun kicked in. Play is my Joy.Just yesterday I was with my friend and his two sons and as I was leaving we started to have a dance party and boy did we dance. Often times Joy finds me when I am doing something that allows Joy in. And the joy comes to visit when I am looking at art, staring out at the sea or the sunset, or listening to a piece of music – often one of your songs in fact – so thank you! So much so that it brings me to tears. And while it is exhilarating to perform in front of others, true and unadulterated joy comes to visit most when it’s just me and my Mustang bass and my mic, in my little old practice room. For me, my art, my music and my joy come to me differently, and seemingly it is them and not I that do the choosing. I was reading an article recently that stated that we find joy most through things that are meaningful and that involve connection to others. Just walking him down to the beach or a park each day. As the KJV asks, "Where does my joy come from?".. I find that joy is elusive, but it catches me every once in a while when I am just present with the beauty. But I believe that light is always there, the light of joy, even when it appears obscured or extinguished. I realise that where I find joy isn’t consistent. Since my husband passed away in 2016 I find my joy through the art of Burlesque, generally taking my clothes off, singing jazz & having as much fun as I can. This is my answer to your question. Keep your eyes and ears open, collect enough of them, and one day, maybe, towards the end, you might even look at this gallery you’ve been curating and realise they aren’t actually all that small after all, are they? The absolute one thing that will fill my heart with joy is the birds dawn chorus. The waves lapping on a beautiful beach. Birds singing is a joy to behold. Jane Austen wrote about love and yet she didn't get the love that she wrote about. I have lived to the age of 58 and my dad died at 40. I find joy in walking outside and listening to inappropriate podcasts. It can be as simple as actually sleeping through the night without tossing or turning with worry. I'm satisfied, connected and joyful. I light the fire pit and use that as my tea drinking station throughout the day. I think that might be how your personal instrument is tuned and which strings resonate with each other.I see emotions and sentiments as a combination of different tones and chords, like different strings on an instrument. I’ve seen you write or talk about how joy, for you, is a complex thing. I read your question for post 300, and I think I see that the question truly comes from you. With so many opportunities for joy, it’s a wonder that I still know the cloud of despair that descended on me in childhood. Like millions of others I have struggled with chronic depression since childhood and have had to become proactive about finding joy, which coexists with depression, gives me momentary relief from despair. I'm still trying to find myself in this life, but I really fell good in nature, forests specially. For some time I though I was most happy when I was sad, melancholic. To answer your question, I also find it hard to fell joy. (Despite sometimes(quite often) only training once a week… whoops) Indeed my friend… and it’s a darn good workout program!! Also, it’s awesome that a show has influenced so many kids and adults to get out and move!! The next morning I had this super head high and felt the urge to walk even further. By the third day I felt myself getting used to it. The first voice I hear is my 7 year old chatting, reading, singing and laughing to herself in bed before she emerges and bounds down the stairs for a morning cuddle.My 12 year old emerges next. Or how venting with a co-worker about how awful management is can become a private spiritual practice that opens itself up to joy amidst bitterness. A stubbed toe, a car accident, a long wait at the DMV, oversleeping.Decentering oneself from the hunt, and distancing joy itself from any expected source. Okay, joy, where or how do you find joy, right. Those moments when horse, in spite of domestication essentially wild, and human, deeply divided against themselves, meet and find peace in each other. I live in a small apartment on modest means but I love collecting so I made a rule; have nothing in my home that doesn't have a story. When I felt like the first person that ever felt love or pain or God or joy. When music and art and theatre was the most urgent thing, every day was a fresh page and something to be wondered at. And then it all becomes very clear, that joy was laid bare, right in front of us the whole time. Last but not least, my boyfriend/life partner. Dancing, singing, although that is not particularly joyful to someone else ears. My undisputed source of joy are cats. Joy is the simplicity oforangea sun warmed pavement marmite (apologies but vegemite is no good)a silver birchthe word collapse to list just a fewat the right time in the right frame of mindor the spells don't work Happiness is the freedom to feel whatever comes along without judgement. In contact with nature is the only place I have been able to find something that resembles joy the latest year. Nick, you say in your question that joy often is something we must actively seek. You bring joy to many, and dare I say, yourself. It's a deeply life-affirming experience. Sometimes we think of joy being like the Hallelujah Chorus, big and bright, but if you work to appreciate the small joys, you will be more receptive to those joys that pick you up and squeeze your soul. This can bring me a great deal of joy, or a quite mind which sometimes is all the joy that’s needed. If you need a lot more joy in your life, come and live here. In these moments joy may be in so many things. I think joy for me is probably in the smallest moments, typically conditioned by openness and relaxation, being ‘out of my head’, with little or no daily concerns. For joy, I exercise the muscles of the heart at the voyages and music festival gyms, and nurture the brain cells connections with nutrients contained in letters, sounds, texts, music, and sensorial experiences captured by my body sensors. All great pieces of gear, all have made my life easier and immeasurably better when used responsibly, but none have brought me joy, save for music or an adorable cat video. Few things in life can give me that wonderful feeling; my children and my wife. And I am filled with joy that we are sculptures in time, and beautiful. True joy is not found by avoiding sorrow but by embracing the full spectrum of life's experiences. There is a kind of joy in forgetting. This is the source of my joy.And chocolate. I carry a special smile that says, "Nice to meet you, but please be on your way."Despite my social maladjustment, I have a wife, a daughter, and a few very close friends. Those are the times when I recognize my own failings, and I use that to celebrate the successes and achievements of others who I dismissed and deemed "not worthy". Underlying all this is the big question 'why'. Aside from the obvious answer of joy in music, film and literature, it is the small things that bring a spark of joy to my everyday. I have drunk the best of life, traveled extensively, eaten sumptuously, enjoyed great friendships and romances, read thrilling and wonderful books, heard extraordinary music, and witnessed art and creativity of unbelievable beauty and spectacle. Listening to and playing music as well as singing too brings me joy. What brings me the most joy in life is connection with other humans. I write a Friday father file to my kids FFFHere is my response to finding joyFFF#78There is a question that’s been asked on the internet “how do you find joy in your life? If you want to experience joy, you need to dare to dive into the dark parts of yourself, go through the shadow, face the beast in order to reach the liberation of your ego and feel the real joy. I now literally and figuratively live on a mountain, doing the things that bring me joy. Whether through the communion in music, through the love of friends and family, or through arts and writing. Unsurprisingly my child brings me joy. It used to be day of sailing, swim in the sea or 10 pints with me friends.Not always, but under right circumstances rather simple things work. I am balls deep in a depressive episode at the moment but, surprisingly, joy still crops up. In these moments an incredible warmth flows through me and I smile broadly to myself. I find joy in the forest, where I often go to feel connected to something ancient. ’ Something as simple as witnessing the pure beauty of a sunrise? In my opinion, it is a perfect song, just like the perfect moment of witnessing those ancient, high flying cranes. The comfort I derive from listening to that song is similar to that which I experience when I glimpse migrating Sandhill Cranes. You have a song called, “To Be by Your Side” from the gorgeous movie, “Winged Migration.” To me, that song has so many emotions contained within it- heartache, love, longing, contentment, courage. It feels reassuring to me to see that this part of the world is working as it should. A streak of sunlight that flashes through a grey sky, the smell of green after a storm or just that feeling that all is as it should be. He’s truly my life, an amazing dad to me, an amazing grandad to my son, and is the meaning of joy in my life. As I was riding my bike there, in the shade of the big trees, in different shades of green, in the fresh air, for the first time in so long, I felt a real physical joy of existence. I may not feel joy, but I will nevertheless know that It Is There. But after yesterday's experience I will be able to remind myself that the disconnection is only in my perception. Fully immersing myself into music. Finding new brilliant musical groups and revisiting my favorite muscians and their work... Listening to music at top volume... I am moved to tears of joy by a crowd at a concert joining together to proclaim love without inhibition, singing with the performer, sharing the emotions of a song. Sometimes in the middle of all of this, sometimes I remember joy. And they also help us to understand that loss is a natural part of life, and that there is nobody or nothing in particular to blame for loss, and that the way to get through these difficult times is to rage, and to mourn, and to accept, and to embrace life. The cockatoo who, this morning, shrieked through my moment of hard-won quietude and reminded me that I am, in fact, a fool—searching, for barely a moment, for his way among the flowers. I like to live a life extra full for my late husband who can't. That they’re nothing less important than the very constellation points of your time here in this strange, sad, and sometimes fucking jaw-droppingly lovely world we are, each of us, in our own way, going quietly mad within. It does exist, thankfully.But instead of looking for it in grand gestures and hallmark moments, Joy is found in the small stuff, I think.It’s quiet, seldom draws attention to itself, and needs to be invited in. Or cradled in my hand, a miraculous simple beauty.Being woken at some preposterous hour by the deep basso throttly, bellowing roar of a koala - a disturbing, ungodly, marvelous racket that sparks a little surge of joy knowing one is right there, outside my window. I can feel the joy of us lying side by side on the grass, giddy and laughing at the illusion of towering pencil pines pitching towards us as clouds streaked away behind. Until perpetual misery just didn’t feel like honour anymore and I couldn’t bear to reduce a magnificent life, however short, to pain and loss and wretchedness. And dogs, and books, and sunrise, and rain, and tea.I think if you just get on with it, live with gratitude, and engage with the world around you, joy is there. It take me about 2.5hr to walk 4 days over 7. Break in to 5 workouts perday (20;20;20;2) Eat only vegetables. A rough estimate based on your experiences will be appreciated. You’re scared you’ll lose muscle from working out 5 times a week, due to high reps, or due to cardio? I’m going into a fitness atleast 5 times at week.. Dogs bring me joy.I tried to be fancier, or find deeper, more meaningful things - like human relationships, religion, spirituality.... All our beautiful differences and behaviours makes me happy. I find joy in people’s wonderful quirks. I find my joy in the anticipation of good things that I know or hope are coming in close connection with my loved ones. This is a very life-giving practice. Even though I can't honestly claim to really know where, when or how I find joy, I do know something that helps set the stage to enable the possibility for joy to dance its way into my soul. It is a life balancing on a wire. Because joy is what you have to experience, sadness happens to you, often unexpectedly. Life is duty; fulfill your duty and experience joy. I find joy exercising (walking, riding...) with my husband and our three boys in nature. Often if I know I am lacking in joy and go looking for it in a specific place where I've found it once or a hundred times before, it isn't there. And inevitably, with so much loss, and pain, in some (perhaps) twisted way, joy sometimes hides in the darkest parts of my soul. I experience joy in the midst of action. I hope I will not go deaf or that if I do, I will still hear my joy music in my mind. Maybe many people share a "joy song" but they never know it. I imagine my joy music is different than another person's. However there are songs which I heard years ago that I can still hear today and again be transported to a place of joy. Care.Honoring the dead.Finding the ineffable.Listening with soul.The sharp crack of light.Scent of lavender and sea.Unraveling life. I'll call this joy because I couldn't see any possibility out of my situation 30 minutes before and unexpectedly, I felt it was possible to hang on a bit longer. I could feel how soft my hands had become. I didn't want to go and have to drop $50 I didn't have on lotion, but I knew I needed to get out of my apartment where I couldn't even bring myself to open the blinds. My joy is in being a good husband to my wife. My joy today was to talk to my friend, who i thought i had somehow lost connection with in the conundrum that is everyday life. My son died seven years ago and it was a long time before I felt any untamed joy, then for a while my life was filled with awe. I also very much enjoy the Red Hand Files, music is a constant joy and taking enough time out to stop and watch the black cockatoos screech across the sky. I think as we age and particularly get over the mid century figure, it’s hard to let it in because we have lived the hard, the sorrow, the busy, the life longer. I am finding as I get old it’s harder to find and have often lately been saying to friends that I have no joy. I was going to say joy is in the pause, but no, joy follows the pause. But every single year that joy is repeated faithfully, and reminds me that I might lose but I will also be restored. They always pick the stormy time of early Spring to bloom, and deliberately sacrifice themselves to gales after little more than a week of beauty. I miss my husband every day, but how lucky am I. They fascinate me, and I can’t wait to see what kind of people they want to be. But when I am open and feeling at peace with myself then I can see the world for what it is, a true collection of beauty and wonder of which I am forever in awe of. I feel joy in watching my little girl run between the house and garden – the way she jumps on her trampoline, the way she makes potions from flower petals and occasionally thinks to see it there are bees inside her bee hotel (none yet but still waiting). I find the most beautiful joy and happiness when surrounded by my family, my incredible wife and my wonderful daughter. I choose to feel joy as easy as I once chose to feel melancholy.