Joy, paradise lost!?

By Oana Lis, Psychologist

When you say joy what do you think of!?
What synonym comes to mind?
I don’t know about you, but Joy comes to mind = Childhood…

And do we, as adults, still know how to really enjoy ourselves?? Yes, if we know how to stay in touch with our *inner child* state.

Synonyms of the word joy are contentment, comfort, delight, pleasure, satisfaction, and antonyms would be sorrow, pain, and trouble, upset.

*Joy is not in things, it is in us.* (Richard Wagner)

Joy is one of the universally encountered states of mind, along with anger, fear, elation, sadness, disgust, etc.

But today we are talking about joy, that natural feeling of living contentment, of soul satisfaction.

*Joy is the higher step of cheerfulness and contentment.* (J. Koller) 

To begin with, a child is the purest form of joy. And it’s so easy to love them.
And they seem to awaken in us that state of exaltation. 

*A little child in a house is a source of joy.* (Martin Tupper) 

I don’t have kids, but whenever I have time and feel low on energy, I go to the park and watch the kids. They don’t know bills, worries, wars, they jump, they play, they enjoy the present. I think this is the secret, to live more in the present, to feel the moment of the present to the fullest, without thinking only of the decisions of the past and the plans of the future, and thus to forget about us, those of now.

And then we would be happier, happy that we exist, simple but complex joy of being…here, now!!!

*Learning to live in the present moment is part of the path to joy.*(Sarah Ban Breathnach)

*Joy springs from the fact that one can see what is beautiful and good in life.* (Zsigmond Moricz)

So, how do we as adults, in this world with so many challenges we live in now…how do we make ourselves joyful every day!? Joy also depends on studies and the dopamine hormone, so it comes from within… It could come from cultivating the state of gratitude every day, from the continuous awareness of all the things that deserve to feel happy for, no matter how small, to look for reasons to joy every day… in a smile, in a ray of sunshine, in a hug from a loved one, in a cup of tea or coffee drunk alone, in front of a book or a good movie and all so. The point is that we humans sometimes learn to appreciate certain things and people only when they are no longer in our lives. Why is that so!?

Because we get used to what we have, we get into a routine and we no longer see some situations clearly. We get to value certain people in our life at their true value sometimes too late, the same with health, when we have it we get used to it, it’s a state of normality, we’re not happy to have it, we realize it only when some problems arise.

We should cultivate the state of joy daily, evaluating the good things in our life, valuing the people who really bring us added value in this moment in our life, evaluating the situation correctly, this is where the help of a therapist can intervene in a crisis situation, because it would help us see things from a different, more positive perspective.

*The healthiest response to life is joy.* (Mark Twain)

Life is a gift. A divine gift. That alone is a wonderful and universal reason to enjoy this journey and every moment and every experience.

*Man loves because he himself is love. Seek joy because it is joy. It thirsts for God because it is made of God and cannot exist without Him* (Sathya Baba)

Also, joy comes not only from what you receive, but also from what you give… The joy of giving is the leitmotif of the coming holiday season. Being able to be happy that you gave someone a little happiness is something magical and it comes back to you tenfold. This is how a connection is created between people, each one of us charges from the other, and then preferably it would be with joy. Giving with joy is about being attentive to others, not necessarily about the value of the gift; it’s about being with each other.

*Joy shared is double joy, sadness shared is half sadness.* (Swedish proverb)

The need for human contact is one of the strongest needs and if we ignore it, it can have negative effects on our health. So let’s choose to be together and enjoy it. It’s so simple and yet we ignore it.

*Where there is love, there is joy.* (Mother Teresa)

So let’s not forget our *inner child*, let’s take care of him, of this state, because it makes us play, be intuitive, creative and open. Embrace your inner child right now, with joy! How can you do that!? I’ll give you an example, what I did at 35 years old, after a course where I had some awareness on this topic, I realized that I suffered all the time when I was little, among other things that I didn’t have the doll either me or my stuffed toy, my stuffed (because in my day there weren’t that many toys for children, especially for the needy) so I went into a bookstore and even bought the biggest stuffed bear of there, I have it in front of me even now, when I write you these lines. His name is Bubu!

What did you decide to do to have a state of joy?

I embrace you with love and joy, Oana.

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